THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


GIFT  OF 

Anonymous  Donor 


THE     ISSUES 


OF 


AMERICAN  POLITICS 


A  DISCUSSION  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  QUESTIONS  INCIDENT  TO 

THE  GOVERNMENTAL  POLITY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

EMBRACING 

THE  SUBJECTS  OF  AMNESTY,  FORCE  LEGISLATION,  CIVIL  SER- 
VICE,  SUFFRAGE,  THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER,  OUR 
MONEY  AND  CURRENCY,  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT,  THE  NAT- 
IONAL BANKING  SYSTEM,  RECONSTRUCTION,  THE 
CONSTITUTIONAL      AMENDMENTS,      TARIFFS, 
TAXATION,  PROTECTION  AND  FREE  TRADE, 
AND  OTHER  IMPORTANT  TOPICS. 


AN 

EXHAUSTIVE  TREATISE  UPON  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 


BY 

ORRIN    SKINNER, 

(OF  THE    NKW   YORK    BAR.) 


PHILADELPHIA 

J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

•  873. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872,  by 

ORRIN  SKINNER, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


LTPPINCOTT'S    PRESS, 
P  II  I  L  A  D  E  L  P  H  I  A  . 


WITH    DUE    RESPECT, 

THE  AUTHOR 
ADMIRINGLY    DEDICATES 

THIS    VOLUME 


W.    DWIGHT, 

SCHOLAR,  A    PROFOUND    LAV 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PUBLISHERS'  ADVERTISEMENT xix 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE... xxiii 


INTRODUCTORY 13 

PART   I. 

MONETARY   AND   FINANCIAL   TOPICS. 
EXPLANATORY 19 

CHAPTER  I. 
MONEY  AND   CURRENCY. 

Money  with  the  Ancients — The  Requisites  of  Money — What  is 
Money? — The  Offices  of  Money — A  Measure  of  Value — The 
Standard  in  the  United  States — A  Medium  of  Exchange — A 
Producer  of  Value — The  Relations  of  Money  to  Commerce — 
The  Amount  Needed— The  Balance  of  Trade — Interest — The 
Prospective  Decline  in  the  Value  of  Money — The  Kinds  and 
Substitutes  of  Money — Convertible  Currency — Inconvertible 
Currency,  or  Paper  Money — The  Proper  Limits  of  both — Ex- 
cessive Issues  of  the  same 20 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE  MONEY   AND   CURRENCY   OF  THE  UNITED   STATES. 
The  Subject  Classified — History  of  our  Present  Circulating  Medium 
— The  Character  of  our  Circulation  Prior  to  the  Rebellion — The 
Status  of  Business  at  its  Outbreak — The  Legal-Tender  Notes — 
Issues  of — Effect  of  the  same  u|x>n  Business — The  Three-per- 
cent. Certificates — More    Bank   Currency  demanded — •'  Equal- 
ization "  of  the   same   attempted — Gold    Hanks — Statement  of 
1»  v 


vi  CONTENTS. 

FACE 

Money  in  Circulation  at  the  Close  of  the  Year  1871 — Criticism 
of  the  Legal-Tenders — Action  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  in  reference  to — Secretary  of  the  Treasury  no  Authority 
to  make  Further  Issues  of — What  they  Cost — Amount  of  Circu- 
lating Medium  needed  in  the  United  States  at  the  Present  Time 
— The  Present  Volume  of  Circulation  Fifty  per  cent,  in  excess — 
Evils  of  the  Present  Paper  Circulation— They  constitute  a 
Narrative  of  Indescribable  Suffering — The  Fraud  connected 
with  Mutilated  Currency — These  Evils  bear  mostly  upon  the 
Laboring,  Salaried  and  Agricultural  Classes — Resumption  of 
Specie  Payments — How  to  be  Effected — Senator  Sumner's  Plan 
Criticised — Compound-interest  Notes  not  Wanted — The  Retire- 
ment of  our  Legal-Tenders  the  Proper  Means  of  Resumption...  66 

CHAPTER   III. 
BANKS   AND   THE   NATIONAL   BANKING   SYSTEM. 

DIVISION  FIRST. 

BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS  IN  GENERAL. 
A  Necessary  Adjunct  of  Money  for  Purposes  of  Commerce — Their 
Legitimate  Office  to  Receive  and  Distribute  Money — Present 
Offices — Deposit — Discount  and  Circulation — Deposit  Masses 
Capital — A  Means  for  Saving  the  Use  of  Money — Is  Deposit  a 
Myth  ? — Deposits  Seldom  Moved — Deposit  is  not  Money,  but  its 
Substitute — Discount,  the  Purchase  of  Unmatured  Obligations — 
The  Fund  by  which  the  Business  of  Discount  is  Worked — How 
Discount  Operates  in  Connection  with  Deposit — Circulation,  how 
it  Differs  in  Nature  from  Deposit  and  Discount — A  Measure  of 
Public  instead  of  Private  Economics — An  Act  of  Credit — The 
Elements  of  the  Credit  requisite  for  Circulation — Circulation 
belongs  to  and  devolves  upon  the  People — The  Doctrine  of 
Convertibility — Is  it  Tenable  or  Feasible  ? — Private  Banking — 
Banking  in  History — The  Banks  of  Venice,  Genoa  and  Amster- 
dam— Their  Origin  and  Operations 95 

DIVISION  SECOND. 
THE  NATIONAL  BANKING   SYSTEM. 

A  Monopoly — Its  Origin — Its  Adoption  and  Principal  Features — 
The  Advantages  of  the  System — They  are  seen  in  its  Material 
Basis,  Government  Bonds — The  Arguments  against  this  Feature 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PAGB 

of  the  System  Examined  and  Refuted — They  are  also  seen  in 
the  Element  of  Uniformity — Compared  with  the  State  Bank 
System  in  this  respect — Also  seen  in  the  fact  that  Circulation 
cannot  be  in  Excess — Its  Disadvantages — A  Monopoly — How  a 
Monopoly — It  sets  an  Arbitrary  Limit  upon  the  Extent  of  Circu- 
lation— In  this  respect,  Unjust,  Indefensible  and  in  Violation  of 
Economic  Law — It  robs  the  People  of  the  Benefit  of  Circulation 
and  confers  it  upon  the  National  Banks — In  this  respect  it 
Enforces  Illegal  Taxation — Minor  Defects — The  Theory  of  Con- 
vertibility, as  applied  to  the  System,  fully  Examined — The  Con- 
flict between  the  System  and  the  Legal-Tender  Notes — A  Balance 
taken  between  the  two — The  Result  in  Favor  of  the  Banks — 
The  System,  with  certain  Modifications,  a  Success 119 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PUBLIC   DEBT   AND    FUNDING   SCHEMES. 

DIVISION  FIRST. 

PUBLIC    DEBTS. 

The  Origin  of  Public  Debt— Historical  View  of  the  Same— The 
Causes  which  impel  Nations  to  run  in  Debt — Public  Debt  in 
Europe — How  Contracted  in  General — The  Different  Expedients 
adopted  for  Payment  of  the  Same — The  Theory  that  a  National 
Debt  is  a  National  Blessing,  Examined — It  is  for  England,  but 
not  for  the  United  States — It  Depends  upon  the  form  of  Govern- 
ment— Minor  Comment 142 

DIVISION  SECOND. 
FUNDING  SCHEMES. 

Nature  and  Origin — Funding  defined — Details  examined — Sink- 
ing Funds — Historical  View  of  the  Subject — The  Results  of 
Funding — The  Various  Schemes  fully  examined — Opinions  of 
Eminent  Writers  upon  the  same 156 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE   PUBLIC   DEBT  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES. 
The  Public  Debt  prior  to  the  I-nte  War — The  first  Financial  Meas- 
ures of  Government  at  its  Outbreak — They  show  an  Utter  In- 
appreciation  of  the    Character  of  the   Conflict — The   General 
Policy  in  this  respect  fully  stated — The  Various  Evidences  of 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Indebtedness,  and  the  Acts  which  Authorized  them,  examined — 
The  Evils  of  the  Financial  War  Policy  were  Short  Loans — Loans 
in  the  Form  of  Money — The  various  Funding  Acts  stated  and 
explained — The  Operations  of  the  "Syndicate"  examined — 
Wholly  Illegal— Its  Results — A  Failure — Why  the  Debt  should 
be  Paid — How  the  United  States  Differ  from  Great  Britain  in 
this  respect 164 


PART  II. 

EXISTING  AND   PROPOSED  CHANGES   IN  OUR  ORGANIC 
AND   MUNICIPAL  LAW. 

INDUCTIVE 185 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE   CONSTITUTIONAL   AMENDMENTS. 

The  Importance  of  the  Topic — The  Thirteenth  Amendment — The 
First  Fruit  of  the  Rebellion — Indications  of  the  Purpose  of  the 
North  to  Exterminate  Slavery — The  Confiscation  Acts  and  the 
Emancipation  Proclamations  the  foundation  of  the  Amendment 
— The  Origin  of  the  Amendment — The  Manner  and  Legality 
of  its  Adoption — The  Question  Discussed  at  length — The  Legal- 
ity of  its  Ratification  by  the  States — The  Status  of  the  States 
assuming  to  Ratify — President  Lincoln  and  Reconstruction — 
President  Johnson  and  Reconstruction — The  Constitutionality  of 
the  Amendment — The  same  Examined  at  length — Minor  Col- 
lateral Questions — Presidents  Lincoln  and  Johnson's  courses  on 
Reconstruction  compared — The  same  Defended — The  Effect  of 
the  Amendment — The  Fourteenth  Amendment — Introductory 
Comment — The  Incompleteness  of  the  Scheme — Its  Origin  due 
to  both  Political  and  Moral  Causes — The  Ends  sought  by  the 
Change — The  History  and  Legality  of  both  the  Congressional 
Vote  proposing  the  Amendment  and  its  Ratification  by  the 
States — The  Status  of  the  States  assuming  to  Ratify — The  Ques- 
tion of  Suffrage — The  Constitutionality  of  the  Scheme — Citizen- 
ship— The  Amendment  analyzed — Distinction  between  Civil  and 
Political  Rights  and  Privileges — The  Resulting  Effect  of  the 
Amendment — Monopolies — The  Rights  of  Corporations  and 


CONTENTS,  IX 

PACK 

P'ranchises  under  the  Amendment — The  case  of  the  New 
Orleans  Slaughter-house  Company — The  Full  Effect  of  the 
Amendment  stated — The  Fifteenth  Amendment — Its  Cause  and 
Origin — The  Enfranchisement  of  the  Blacks — The  Legality  of 
its  Ratification — The  Status  of  the  States  assuming  to  Ratify — 
The  Right  of  a  State  to  Withdraw  its  Assent  considered — The 
Constitutionality  of  the  Amendment — Discussed  at  length — The 
Extent  of  the  Power  of  Amendment — The  Results  of  the 
Amendment  fully  defined — Woman  Suffrage  under  the  Amend- 
ments— The  alleged  Merits  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  criticised  in  detail — Deduction  from  the  Criticism 
— The  Case  of  the  Blacks — Concluding  Comment 190 

CHAPTER   II. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

Executive  Proclamation — Congressional  Legislation — The  Freed- 
men's  Bureau — Virginia  and  Tennessee  Reconstructed — Death 
of  Mr.  Lincoln — President  Johnson's  Policy — Progress  of  State 
Restoration — Congress  upon  Reconstruction  in  1 866 — The  Open- 
ing of  the  Executive  and  Legislative  Conflict — Contest  upon  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill — The  Same  reviewed — Disagreement 
upon  the  Civil  Rights  Bill — Its  Constitutionality  considered — 
The  Status  of  the  late  Disloyal  States  in  this  Connection — 
Citizenship  considered — The  Civil  Rights  Bill  Unconstitutional 
— President  Johnson  Officially  Declares  the  Rebellion  Con- 
cluded —  Continued  Disagreement  between  the  President  and 
Congress — The  Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill  again  in  Question — 
The  Same  Vetoed — Neither  Party  entitled  to  Credit — A  mere 
Fight  of  Policies — The  Final  Reconstruction  Measures  of  Con- 
gress— The  Same  Stated  and  fully  Considered — What  Might  have 
Been — Collateral  Comment — Constitutionality  of  the  Scheme — 
Vetoed  by  the  President — Legality  of  Presidents  Lincoln  and 
Johnson's  Measures — Conclusion  of  Reconstruction 269 

CHAPTER   III. 
AMNESTY. 

The  Question  stated — The  Several  Measures  of  Proscription — Offi- 
cial Proscription — The   Iron-clad  Oath  Act — The   Prescriptive 
Al 


E  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Feature  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Same  construed 
with  the  Iron-clad  Oath  Act,  and  their  Operation  and  Effect 
considered — The  Constitutional  Oath  Act — Suffragan  Proscrip- 
tion— The  Abstract  Causes  which  render  Amnesty  Necessary — 
The  Direct  and  Collateral  Ends  sought  by  its  Institution — The 
Last  fully  equal  to  the  First — The  So-called  Moral  Argument 
against  Amnesty  refuted — The  Various  Prescriptive  Measures 
criticised — The  Same  based  upon  Policy — Not  needed  to  Secure 
the  Results  of  the  Late  War — Prejudicial  in  their  Tendencies  to 
the  Welfare  of  the  Entire  Nation — Proscription  as  a  Means  of 
Punishment — Inadequate  and  Indefensible — The  Policy  of  Hate 
— Universal  Amnesty  Required — The  Problem  now  Before  the 
People — The  Ku-klux  Klans — The  Pathway  out  of  Present 
Difficulties — Executive  Action  in  Respect  to  Amnesty — Partly 
Legal  and  Partly  Illegal — President  Johnson  Dismissed — Inter- 
locutory Comment  upon  his  Impeachment — The  Status  of  Mis- 
souri— The  United  States  Supreme  Court  on  Test  Oaths 295 


CHAPTER   IV. 
FORCE   LEGISLATION. 

The  Enforcement  or  "  Ku-klux"  Act  stated — Its  General  Character 
— Construed  with  the  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Act  in  this 
Connection  Irrelevant — The  First  Eight  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution  and  the  Bill  of  Rights — The  Case  of  the  Blacks — 
The  Fourteenth  Amendment  runs  against  the  States — The 
Enforcement  Act  runs  against  Individuals — The  Act  confers 
Executive  and  Judicial  Powers — Unconstitutional — The  Subject 
in  this  Connection  fully  considered — The  Mariner  in  which  it 
Violates  the  Constitution — The  Habeas  Corpus  Question — Inva- 
sion and  Rebellion  considered — Congress  Illegally  Construed 
both  the  Constitution  and  the  Fourteenth  Amendment — Miscel- 
laneous Comment — The  Plea  of  Necessity  Considered  and 
Refuted — The  Inherent  Errors  of  Force  Legislation — The  Cen- 
tralization of  Power  referred  to — The  Duty  of  the  American 
People — Present  Tendencies — Action  Taken  under  the  Law — 
The  Scheme  entirely  Impolitic,  as  well  as  Illegal — The  Present 
Condition  of  the  South  under  the  so-called  "Carpet-Bag" 
Governments 316 


CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER   V. 
CIVIL   SERVICE. 

PAG* 

"To  the  Victor  belong  the  Spoils  of  the  Enemy" — The  Origin 
and  Significance  of  the  Phrase — Civil  Service  defined — The 
present  Institution  wholly  a  Political  One — The  Status  of  the 
President  and  Congress  in  relation  thereto — The  Defects  of  the 
Present  System — It  Rests  upon  Political  Influence — Merit  entirely 
Discarded — Its  Enervating  Effects  upon  the  President — The 
Same  as  to  Members  of  Congress — The  Same  as  to  Members  of 
the  Service — A  Continuous  Chain  of  Self-interest  from  the  Presi- 
dent to  the  most  Petty  Official — The  Operation  of  the  System 
viewed — How  it  Bears  upon  Elections — Political  Assessments — 
The  System  a  Slavery  of  Opinion — A  Statement  of  the  Number, 
Grade  and  Salaries  of  Officials  Engaged  in  the  Service — Civil 
Service  Reform — Attempts  in  this  Direction  so  far  Failures — 
Measures  Necessary  for  an  Adequate  Reform — They  consist  of 
Twelve  Changes  in  our  Organic  and  Municipal  Code — The 
Same  Discussed  at  Length — Criticism  of  the  Report  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission — It  is  both  Inadequate  and  Impracticable — 
The  Worth  of  Oral  or  Written  Examinations  considered — The 
Machinery  by  which  the  Same  are  to  be  Conducted — It  Opeus 
more  widely  the  Door  for  Fraud  and  Abuse  than  the  Old  System 
— "  Political  Pressure"  not  Overcome,  but  Encouraged — A  mere 
Machine  for  Party  Aggrandizement 342 


PART  III. 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  REVENUE  LEGISLATION. 
PRELIMINARY 397 

CHAPTER  I. 

PROTECTION   AND   FREE  TRADE. 

The  Inherent  Difficulties  of  the  Question — Like  the  Entire  Theme 
of  Political  Economy,  it  is  not  Responsive  to  the  Rules  of  Pure 
Science — The  Statement  Corrolx>rated  by  Eminent  Authority — 
The  Method  of  the  Opposing  Forces — Protection  and  Free 
Trade  Defined — The  Conditions  upon  which  the  Opposing  Doc- 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

trines  Rest — The  Limits  of  the  Respective  Systems — Free  Trade 
is  Passive,  Protection  Active — Protection  Merely  Secures  the 
Possibilities  of  Capital  and  Industry — Cheapness  and  the  Law  of 
Price  considered — The  Effect  of  Protection  thereon — Protection 
Seeks  its  Ends  by  Means  of  Tariffs  upon  Imports — Protective 
Tariffs  do  not  Enhance  the  Price  of  Imports  to  the  Extent  of 
the  Burden  Laid  upon  the  Same — The  Law  of  Competition 
makes  such  Enhancement  Impossible — The  Principle  Illustrated 
— Protection  does  not  Divert  the  Employment  of  Capital  and 
Industry  to  their  Prejudice — The  Point  considered  at  Length — 
The  Same  of  National  Prosperity — Protection  does  not  Foster 
Monopolies,  either  Individual  or  Local — Protection  does  not 
Encourage  Ignorance — Protection  is  not  Taxation — Protection 
does  not  Bar  Exportation — The  Force  of  Natural  Law  in  this 
Connection — National  Prosperity  based  upon  Producing  Power 
— Protection  should  be  Stable — John  Stuart  Mill  in  Support  of 
the  System — The  Moral  Aspect  of  the  Question — Rude  and 
Skilled  Labor — Agriculture  and  .  Manufactures — Cities  and 
Villages — It  is  a  Question  of  Civilization  or  Barbarism,  Progress 
or  Decay — The  Proper  Policy  for  the  United  States — The  Abso- 
lute and  Relative  Conditions  of  the  Country  Stated — In  View 
thereof  Free  Trade  Points  to  the  almost  Universal  Pursuit  of 
Agriculture — Free  Trade,  by  Reducing  Cost  of  Raw  Material, 
would  not  put  our  Industries  on  an  Equal  Footing  with  European 
Ones — The  Case  of  England  Cited — Its  Position  Dissimilar  to 
that  of  the  United  States — No  Analogy  between  them — The 
Reason  England  advocates  Free  Trade — The  Question  of  the 
Laboring  Classes  in  this  Connection — England  Owes  her  present 
Commercial  Status  to  Protection — Skilled  Labor  never  a  Drug 
— Protection  at  Present  the  Proper  Policy  of  the  American 
'  Republic 398 

CHAPTER   II. 

TARIFFS. 

The  Scope  of  the  Discussion — It  will  not  Descend  to  Details,  but 
state  Principles  by  which  the  Same  may  be  reached — History  of 
Tariff  Legislation  in  the  United  States — The  Tariff  of  1789 — A 
Protective  Measure — Its  Cause  and  Origin — Amendments  thereof 
— Alexander  Hamilton  and  James  Madison  upon  the  Policy — 
The  Tariff  of  1816 — Induced  by  the  Changed  Status  of  Europe 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

PAGE 

and  America — Inadequate — The  General  Distress  which  fol- 
lowed— The  Tariff  of  1824 — Strongly  Protective — Its  Cause  and 
Origin — A  Success — Clay  and  Webster  the  Master-spirits  of  the 
Conflict— The  Claim  of  Locality— The  Tariff  of  1828— A  Modi- 
fication of  the  one  of  1824 — The  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833 — 
Protection  Abandoned — Its  Cause  and  Origin — South  Carolina 
— Clay  the  Mover  of  the  Scheme — Webster  its  Opponent — Posi- 
tions of  the  two  Reversed — From  1833  to  1842  Free  Trade  and 
Disaster  Ruled  the  Country — The  Tariff  of  1842 — Protection 
Resumed — Modified  in  1846 — Prosperity  Followed — The  Tariff 
of  1857 — Protection  again  Abandoned — The  Forerunner  of 
General  Distress — The  Tariff  of  1861 — Protection  Reinstated — 
Why  ? — Protection  for  the  United  States  Defended — Our  Import 
and  Export  Trade  Reviewed — The  Results  of  Tariff  Legislation 
in  this  Country — The  Case  of  Labor,  Agriculture  and  Cotton — 
The  Classes  of  Articles  to  which  a  Protective  Tariff  should 
Attach — The  Principle  Stated  which  here  Governs — The  Case 
of  Raw  Materials — Iron  requires  Protection — Coal  and  Wool  do 
not — Lumber  for  Special  Reasons  should  not  have  it — The 
Extent  to  which  a  Protective  Impost  should  be  Laid — The  Same 
fully  examined 445 

CHAPTER   III. 

TAXATION. 

Introductory  Comment — The  Scope  of  the  Topic — Taxation  in 
the  Abstract  defined — It  is  a  Creature  of  Policy — How  the 
March  of  Civilization  Compels  it — The  Kinds  of  Taxes  Classi- 
fied— Direct,  Indirect,  Real,  Personal  and  Individual  Taxation 
defined — The  Powers  of  Taxation  Conferred  by  the  Constitution 
— An  Equalization  of  the  Burden  the  Prime  Difficulty  of  Tax- 
ation— How  shall  it  be  Overcome  ? — Proportionate  Sacrifice  and 
Proportionate  Protection — The  Progressive  System — Direct  Tax- 
ation Discussed — The  Land-tax — Citations  from  English  History 
— The  Most  Just — Income-taxes — Impracticable,  and,  in  the 
United  States,  Unconstitutional — Capitation-taxes — Indirect  Tax- 
ation— -A  House-tax — Unjust  and  Unreasonable — Citations  from 
English  and  Irish  History — Eminent  Writers  thereon — Excise- 
taxes — They  Reach  Profits,  Vocations  and  Commodities — Labor 
in  this  Connection — They  work  Injustice — Inappreciable — The 
Error  of  Congress  in  this  Connection — The  Whisky-tax — High 
2 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Rates  of  Taxation  upon  Luxuries  and  Low  Rates  upon  Neces- 
saries yield  the  Greatest  Revenue — Taxation  by  Tariffs — The 
Results  of  Indirect  Taxation  in  the  United  States — Full  Statistics 
Show  them  Oppressive  and  Unfair — The  Question  of  State 
Taxation — It  should  be  Confined  to  Real  Property — Objections 
to  the  Plan  refuted — The  Question  of  Taxation  by  the  General 
Government — A  Proper  Scheme  Suggested,  and  Discussed  at 
length — The  Present  Needs  of  the  General  Government — All 
Direct  Taxes  may  be  Abolished  and  our  Tariff  Curtailed,  and 
still  Reduce  our  Debt  Fifty  Millions  per  Annum — The  Error  of 
Congress  in  this  Respect — "Revenue  Reform"..... 468 


PART  IV. 

REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT. 
PREPARATORY 509 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT. 
Governments  are  the  Offspring  of  Experience,  and  not  of  Invention 
— The  Component  Parts  of  Government — The  Stages  of  Civil- 
ization in  respect  to  Government — The  Subject  in  History — 
The  Elements  of  Representative  Government  are  Founded  in 
Education — They  are  Threefold — All  Forms  of  Government  in 
a  certain  sense  Rest  upon  Consent — The  Processes  of  Education 
which  Lead  to  Representative  Government — The  Attendant 
Difficulties  of — The  Reason  of  Failures  in  Attempting  to  Adopt 
it — The  Question  viewed  Philosophically — The  Subject  belongs 
to  the  Realm  of  Reason 511 

CHAPTER   II. 

SUFFRAGE. 

The  Essence  of  Representative  Government — Purity  of  Suffrage 
defined — The  Requisites  of  Suffrage — The  Unthinking  Mind 
Erroneously  looks  upon  Suffrage  as  an  Abstract  Right — It  Rests 
upon  Duty — Universal  Suffrage,  literally  speaking,  is  Indefen- 
sible and  Wrong — Suffrage  defined — Its  Office  and  Power — The 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

Question  of  Education — The  Proper  Limits  of  Suffrage — Civil- 
ization has  not  yet  Solved  the  Problem — Light  Sought  from  the 
History  of  the  Elective  Franchise  in  the  Old  and  New  Worlds 
— The  Question  in  a  Philosophical  Sense — It  Depends  upon  the 
Peculiar  Conditions  of  every  Nation  in  Respect  to  Race,  Climate, 
Traits  of  Character,  Education,  etc.  etc. — The  Proper  Limits  of 
Suffrage  in  the  United  States — The  Difficulties  attendant  upon 
Clanship  in  this  connection — Our  Peculiar  Status  considered — 
An  Intelligent  Suffrage  our  only  Safeguard — Suffrage  should 
be  a  National  Institution — A  Proper  Scheme  of  Compulsory 
Education  Suggested — The  Benefits  of  such  a  System — The 
Position  of  the  United  States  in  this  Respect  a  Critical  One — 
The  Hope  that  Intelligence  will  Reassert  its  Dignity — The 
Opinion  of  Theorists  upon  this  Point — WOMAN  SUFFRAGE — A 
Quesftbn  entirely  Distinct  from  Suffrage  in  General — Upon  this 
Thought  is  Based  the  Whole  Issue — The  Real  Scope  of  the 
Argument — John  Stuart  Mill  Cited — Woman  Suffrage  Denies 
the  Natural  Condition  of  Woman  as  Ordained  by  God — It 
Defeats  the  Purposes  of  the  Family — The  Creator  has  not 
Indulged  in  Creation  without  a  Purpose — Such  Purpose  is 
Stamped  upon  every  Species  of  His  Handiwork — Adam  Fergu- 
son Cited — The  Distinguishing  Characteristics  of  the  Male  and 
Female  Creation — The  Delicacy  of  the  Point — Analogies  Drawn 
from  the  Brute  Creation — These  Characteristics  Designate  the 
Peculiar  Scope  of  Male  and  Female  Duty — These  Laws  applied 
to  Men  and  Women — Woman's  Nature — Eminent  Writers 
thereon — Th^  Requirements  of  Suffrage  Power  are  such  that  its 
Exercise  by  Woman  Essays  a  Repeal  of  the  Laws  of  God — The 
Assertion  Supported  by  a  View  of  Republican  Politics — Perti- 
nent Inquiries — The  Question  of  the  Fayiily — Its  Purposes  are 
the  Preservation  of  Morality  and  the  Perpetuation  of  the  Human 
Race — The  Marital  Relation — Society — Maternity — The  Major- 
ity of  Women  Shrink  from  the  Exercise  of  the  Elective  Fran- 
chise— Sexual  Passion — Woman  and  the  Ballot  an  Illegal 
Bridal 517 

CHAPTER   III. 
MINORITY    REPRESENTATION. 

The  Question  as  Connected  with  Republicanism — The  Same  in 
Reference  to  the  Will  of  the  Majority — Minority  Representation 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

MOB 

defined — The  Legitimate  Scope  of  Suffrage  in  this  Connection 
— How  Majority  Representation  works  Disfranchisement — The 
Primal  Claim  of  Minority  Representation — The  Same  as  seen 
in  Legislation — Majority  Representation  Proscribes  Intellect — 
Also  Fosters  Class  Legislation — How  Minority  Representation 
would  Obviate  these  Difficulties — The  Means  of  its  Adoption — 
Cumulative  Voting  Considered — Thomas  Hare's  System  the 
Best  ever  Devised — The  Same  Simple,  Effectual  and  Impartial 
— Fully  explained 543 

CHAPTER   IV. 
THE   CENTRALIZATION   OF   POWER. 

State  Rights  vs.  National  Authority  —  The  Difficulty  Attending 
the  Settlement  of  the  Possession  of  Power — A  Task  of  Civil- 
ization— The  Claim  for  Centralization  Based  on  certain  Alleged 
Necessities — How  Centralization  Concerns  the  United  States — 
The  Nature  and  Origin  of  the  General  Government — The  Jeffer- 
sonian  Theory  of  State  Rights  considered — Secession  refuted 
— The  Proper  Line  of  Division  between  State  and  National 
Authority — The  Constitution  has  Defined  it  by  Conferring. cer- 
tain Joint  and  Exclusive  Powers — These  Powers  Enumerated — 
The  Canons  by  which  they  are  Designated  Joint  and  Exclusive 
— The  Instances  in  which  the  General  Government  has  Clashed 
with  State  Authority — The  Instances  in  which  it  has  in  this 
manner  Violated  the  Constitution — Mostly  Confined  to  the  Pre- 
sent Administration — Instances  in  this  connection  Numerous — 
The  Present  Administration  Arraigned — Its  Faults  Stated  in 
Detail — Lawlessness  its  Prime  Defect — The  Chief  Executive, 
Congress  and  the  Departments  all  Involved — Centralization  not 
Required  except  in  respect  to  Suffrage — Why  Required  here — 
The  Evils  it  would  Abolish  and  Prevent — Ignorance  the  Chief 
Agency  which  essays  Federal  Usurpation — The  same  a  Cumu- 
lative Fault  of  the  Present  Administration — Conclusion — Bis- 
marck's Edict  of  Law — The  Present  Need  of  the  American 
People  seen  in  Present  Abuses  of  Official  Trust — Absolutism  of 
some  sort  Needed  in  Every  Government — This  in  the  United 
States  is  the  Inviolability  of  its  Organic  and  Municipal  Law — 
The  Sole  Kings  of  the  People — The  Immediate  Antecedents  of 
the  American  People  give  a  Reason  for  Present  Official  Law- 
lessness— The  Necessary  Rule  for  Official  Conduct 551 


The  portions  of  this  work  which  contain  matter  peculiarly  per- 
tinent to  the  presidential  canvass  0/1872  are  as  follows — namely  :  The 
second  and  fifth  chapters  and  Division  Second  of  the  third  chapter  of 
Part  I.,  the  third,  fourth  and  fifth  chapters  of  Part  //.,  the  third 
chapter  of  Part  III.,  and  the  fourth  chapter  of  Part  IV.  The  first 
discloses  the  defects  and  evil  results  of  our  present  circulating  medium  ; 
the  second  examines  the  management  and  funding  of  the  public  debt, 
including  the  Syndicate  operation  of  the  Department  of  Finance ;  the 
third  treats  of  the  National  banking  system,  and  suggests  necessary 
modifications  ;  the  fourth  discusses  the  subject  of  universal  amnesty  for 
the  Southern  masses ;  the  fifth  views  the  alleged  violation  of  the  Con- 
stitution by  Congress  and  the  President  in  the  adoption  and  enforcement 
of  the  so-called  Ku-klux  act  and  suspension  of  the  privilege  of  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  ;  the  sixth  examines  the  charges  of  abuse  of  the  civil 
service  by  both  Congress  and  the  President,  and  suggests  adequate  means 
for  the  reformation  of  the  system  ;  the  seventh  shows  the  defects  of  our 
present  scheme  of  taxation ;  the  eighth  discusses  the  alleged  violation 
of  the  Constitution  by  both  Congress  and  the  President  in  adopting  and 
enforcing  measures  which  are  claimed  to  unwarrantaoly  interfere  with 
the  local  elections  of  the  several  States,  the  charge  of  the  subversion  of 
the  war  and  judicial  powers  of  the  Government  by  the  President,  the 
charge  of  the  violation  of  United  States  statutes  and  international  law 
by  the  War  Department,  and  of  the  will  of  Congress  by  the  Navy  and 
Post-office  Departments,  the  alleged  prostitution  of  the  press  by  the  present 
Administration  ;  states  the  chief  need  of  the  country  at  the  present  crisis, 
and  in  each  of  the  above  instances  comments  fully  upon  the  collateral 
topics  arising  out  of  the  same. 

2  •  xvii 


PUBLISHERS'  ADVERTISEMENT. 


r  I  "*HE  publishers  of  "The  Issues  of  American  Poli- 
-*•  tics "  accompany  the  presentation  of  the  volume 
to  the  public  with  the  following  comment. 

The  nature  of  the  work  is  correctly  indicated  by  the 
general  title,  but  its  exact,  legitimate  limits  and  the 
ends  it  attempts  to  accomplish  will  be  better  appreciated 
by  a  few  words  of  explanation. 

In  respect  to  the  first,  the  subjects  enumerated  in 
the  Table  of  Contents  disclose  the  main  idea  which  has 
governed  the  author  in  fixing  the  boundary-lines  of 
his  work — namely,  an  examination  of  all  the  principal 
questions  which  are  associated  with  the  politics  of 
the  United  States.  In  pursuance  of  this  thought  the 
author  has  grouped  his  topics  under  four  general 
classifications,  as  seen  in  the  "  Introductory."  These 
topics,  while  they  explore  a  portion  of  the  domain 
of  both  political  economy  and  governmental  science, 
are  not  claimed  by  the  author  to  constitute  an 
abstract  treatise  upon  either.  They  enter  upon  these 
respective  lines  of  inquiry  only  as  they  furnish 


XX  PUBLISHERS'   ADVERTISEMENT. 

subjects  of  dispute  in  American  politics.  The  work, 
consequently,  is  essentially  political  and  entirely 
American. 

As  to  the  end  in  view,  the  endeavor  has  been  to  sub- 
ject the  multifarious  and  perplexing  questions  of  our 
politics  to  a  clear  and  intelligible  discussion,  and  put 
them  before  the  masses  in  a  manner  that  would  assist 
them  in  forming  a  fair  and  impartial  judgment  upon  the 
merits  of  opposing  claims.  The  amount  of  information 
of  the  most  important  character  which  the  author  has 
in  this  way  massed  between  the  covers  of  a  single 
volume  is  really  immense.  The  enormous  detail  of 
our  financial  experiments  and  operations ;  the  import- 
ant changes  in  our  constitutional  law,  and  their  effect 
upon  the  public ;  the  innovations  in  schemes  of  legis- 
lation ;  the  perplexing  question  of  our  civil  service 
(the  simple,  novel  and  effectual  treatment  of  which  is 
worth  the  price  of  the  entire  volume) ;  the  economic 
and  industrial  questions  of  Protection,  Free  Trade, 
Tariffs  and  Taxation ;  the  claims  of  Amnesty  and  Re- 
construction for  the  South ;  the  material  status  of  that 
portion  of  our  country;  the  operation  of  our  system 
of  Suffrage;  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  the 
States  and  the  General  Government  as  to  the  central- 
ization of  power ;  the  new  order  of  things  demanded 
by  the  result  of  the  late  war, — all  these  are  not  only 
presented  in  an  historical  light,  but,  with  numerous 
citations  from  American  and  European  history,  fully 


PUBLISHERS'  ADVERTISEMENT.  XXI 

discussed  and  unsparingly  criticised,  with  suggestions 
for  remedial  change. 

In  respect  to  such  criticism,  the  reader  cannot  but 
be  impressed  with  its  impartial  and  non-partisan  spirit. 
In  those  portions  of  the  work  which  have  suggested  a 
review  of  the  course  of  the  present  Administration 
this  general  feature  is  particularly  noticeable,  and  the 
criticism  of  the  "  Syndicate  "  operation  of  the  Treasuiy 
may  well  be  referred  to  as  an  example  of  the  fairness 
of  the  entire  work.  The  volume,  in  short,  places  the 
issues  of  American  politics  candidly  and  squarely 
before  the  people,  and  this  with  a  clear  and  luminous 
method  and  pleasing  rhetoric. 

An  eminent  critic,  in  reviewing  the  work,  has  said : 
"  Owing  to  the  wide  range  of  discussion,  I  do  not,  on 
all  points,  as  a  matter  of  course,  agree  with  Mr.  Skinner. 
The  entire  work,  however,  is  extremely  interesting, 
contains  a  vast  amount  of  valuable  information,  and, 
as  regards  purity  of  logic  and  beauty  of  rhetoric,  is 
almost  faultless.  The  abstract  discussions  of  Part  I. 
designated  in  the  'Explanatory'  remarks  which  pre- 
cede it,  by  reason  of  the  intricacy  of  the  subjects,  will 
perhaps  fail  to  interest  the  careless  reader.  They  are, 
however,  highly  important.  Discrimination  between 
different  portions  of  the  work  is  hardly  possible,  but 
the  chapters  upon  the  Money  and  Currency  of  the 
United  States,  Banks  and  the  National  Banking  System, 
Public  Debts  and  Funding  Schemes,  the  Constitutional 


xxii  PU&LISHEKS'  ADVERTISEMENT. 


Amendments,  Amnesty,  Civil  Service,  Suffrage,  the 
Centralization  of  Power,  and  the  whole  of  Part  III., 
are  extraordinary  instances  of  clear  and  elegant  narra- 
tion, convincing  argument  and  rhetorical  skill.  The 
disposition  of  the  question  of  Civil  Service  is  peculiarly 
important,  on  account  of  its  feasibility  and  simplicity." 

PHILADELPHIA,  September  i,  1872. 


PREFACE. 


THE  twenty-five  years  last  past  cover  the  most 
important  political  epochs  of  the  United  States. 
Within  the  period  above  named,  American  literature, 
in  a  single  work,  has  not  assumed  to  solve  the  issues 
of  American  politics.  The  annexed  essays,  if  they  may 
be  dignified  with  such  a  title,  were  suggested  by  reason 
of  the  facts  above  stated,  and  propose  a  discussion  of 
the  greater  portion  of  the  questions  which  are  agitating 
the  public  mind.  These  questions,  although  they  all 
attach  themselves  to  the  governmental  polity  of  the 
United  States,  and  are,  consequently,  in  a  general  sense, 
entirely  of  a  political  origin,  are,  however,  strictly  speak- 
ing, of  a  twofold  nature,  namely:  Those  which  are 
purely  political,  and  those  which,  while  in  a  broad 
view  political,  are  more  especially  economic  in  their 
character.  They  are  enumerated  and  classified  in  the 
introductory  remarks  which  follow  this  prefatory  com- 
ment. 

In  respect  to  those  which  are  economic,  the  investi- 
gation is  conducted  by  a  preliminary  discussion  of  the 
abstract  principles  of  economics  which  form  the  founda- 
tion of  each  particular  topic,  followed  by  an  application 
of  such  principles  to  the  present  exigencies  of  the 
American  republic.  For  instance,  the  chapter  devoted 


XXIV  PREFACE. 

* 

to  "The  Money  and  Currency  of  the  United  States"  is 
preceded  by  one  entitled  "  Money  and  Currency." 
The  space  given  to  the  discussion  of  "The  National 
Banking  System"  follows  prior  remarks  upon  "  Banks 
and  Banking  Business  in  General,"  and  the  investiga- 
tion of  The  Public  Debt  and  Funding  Scheme  of  this 
country  is  subsequent  to  that  of  Public  Debts  and 
Funding  Schemes  as  separate  entities  of  political 
science;  and  so  through  the  entire  work.  This  ab- 
stract discussion  seemed  absolutely  imperative  for  a 
proper  understanding  of  the  practical  questions  herein 
considered  which  result  from  the  operation  of  economic 
law. 

The  value  of  these  essays,  if  any,  is  twofold:  First, 
they  consist,  as  already  stated,  of  a  primal  discussion 
of  the  more  important  principles  of  the  so-called  science 
of  Political  Economy,  which  are  interwoven  with 
American  Politics,  followed  by  a  practical  application 
of  those  principles  to  the  present  condition  of  affairs  in 
the  United  States.  Second,  they  treat  of  several  very 
important  subjects  which  have  not  for  the  most  part 
been  separately  discussed  in  printed  form,  save  in  the 
disconnected  manner  of  newspaper  editorials  and  peri- 
odical articles.  Of  these,  The  Constitutional  Amend- 
ments, Reconstruction,  Amnesty,  Civil  Service,  Force 
Legislation,  Suffrage  (particularly  Woman  Suffrage), 
Minority  Representation  and  The  Centralization  of 
Power,  have  engrossed  particular  attention. 

In  these  respects,  these  essays  modestly  assert  a 
merit  which  does  not  attach  to  any  similar  work  now 
extant.  They  have  been  penned  with  an  aim  to  satisfy 
a  seeming  demand  among  the  masses  of  the  people  for 
information  upon  these  and  other  public  matters  of  the 


PREFACE.  xxv 

most  important  character.  American  history,  .since 
1860,  has  been  so  closely  crowded  with  events  of  the 
most  stupendous  import — and  events,  moreover,  result- 
ing in  the  adoption  of  new  and  untried  expedients — 
that  no  one  but  a  constant  student  of  the  same  could 
scarce  hope  to  reduce  them  to  a  clear  and  satisfactory 
solution.  Changes  have  been  made  in  our  constitu- 
tional law ;  a  portion  of  our  territory  has  been  subjected 
to  governmental  reconstruction ;  its  people  in  a  meas- 
ure proscribed ;  our  Civil  Service  is  a  byword  and  a 
reproach,  and  the  constantly-increasing  heterogeneous 
character  of  our  population  is  subjecting  the  efficiency 
of  Representative  Government  to  an  ordeal  of  unpre- 
cedented rigor.  A  proper  understanding  of  these  and 
kindred  topics,  as  already  stated,  seems  to  be  one  of 
the  present  needs  of  the  community.  This  want  these 
essays  have  striven,  in  a  measure,  and  doubtless  with 
imperfect  success,  to  appreciate  and  supply. 

The  method  which  has  been  pursued  in  discussing 
the  topics  herein  noticed  was  designed  to  be  peculiarly 
simple,  natural,  and  consequently  logical.  With  the 
dismissal  of  every  topic,  it  has  been  succeeded  by  one 
which  seemed  to  be  suggested  by  its  predecessor. 
Another  feature  of  the  author's  method  has  been  to 
give  each  subject  and  sub-subject  sole  and  undivided 
attention.  In  the  opening  chapter,  for  example,  money 
is  discussed,  by  dividing  the  topic  into  three  divisions, 
namely,  Metallic  Money,  Convertible  Currency  and 
Inconvertible  Currency  or  Paper  Money.  Most  writers 
have  treated  these  sub-subjects  jointly,  and  conse- 
quently produced  confusion  in  the  minds  of  inexperi- 
enced readers.  This  feature  of  singleness  of  discussion 
pervades  the  entire  work. 


XX  VI  PREFACE. 

The  style  of  the  essays  is  intended  to  be  plain,  clear 
and  unostentatious.  It  could  not,  indeed,  be  otherwise. 
The  subjects  are  such  as  preclude  all  play  of  the  im- 
agination, flights  of  fancy  or  figures  of  rhetoric ;  and  a 
reader  who  seeks  such  entertainment  must  look  in 
other  fields  of  literature. 

Thus  much  as  to  the  origin  and  general  design  of 
thex  treatise.  An  extended  statement  of  its  themes,  and 
the  causes  which  have  forced  them  upon  public  atten- 
tion, will  be  seen  in  the  brief  succeeding  introductory. 

In  conclusion,  the  work  has  doubtless  many  imper- 
fections, and  possibly  a  modicum  of  merit.  If  it  pos- 
sesses the  latter  characteristic  in  a  sufficient  degree,  it 
will  be  read ;  otherwise,  it  will  be  let  alone.  It  is  con- 
sequently submitted  to  an  intelligent  and  discriminating 
public,  with  neither  apology  on  the  one  hand  nor  plea 
for  favor  on  the  other.  It  must  stand  solely  upon  its 
intrinsic  worth.  O.  S. 

NEW  YORK,  August  i,  1871. 


THE 


ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  present  issues  of  American  politics  spring,  in  a 
great  measure,  from  events  which  have  transpired 
within  the  last  decade.  A  brief  analytical  statement  of 
these  events  will,  consequently,  form  a  portion  of  the  fol- 
lowing introductory  remarks. 

On  the  1 2th  of  April,  1861,  the  United  States  were  pre- 
cipitated into  the  most  gigantic  civil  war  that  has  found  a 
place  in  the  annals  of  history.  During  the  presidential 
term  next  preceding  the  4th  of  March  of  the  same  year, 
the  Executive  power  had  been  controlled  by 'a  party  and 
surrounded  by  men  one  wing  of  which,  and  a  majority  of 
whom,  subsequently  became  the  open  enemies  of  the  Gov- 
ernment they  had  sworn  to  protect.  The  official  acts  of  the 
occupant  of  the  White  House  had  added  to  the  shame  of 
cowardice  the  crime  of  hypocrisy,  and  the  heads  of  the 
Departments,  leagued  as  they  were  with  the  rebellious 
faction,  had  virtually  given  it  possession  of  the 'National 
Treasury  and  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  country.  In 
addition  to  Executive  disloyalty,  traitors  infected  the  Capitol 
and  the  judiciary  was  looked  upon  with  suspicion. 

At  the  close  of  this  presidential  term  (March  4,  1861) 
the  Republican  party,  in  pursuance  of  the  legally-expressed 

2  13 


14  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

wish  of  the  people,  for  the  first  time  assumed  the  direction 
of  the  General  Government,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
inaugurated  as  its  Chief  Magistrate.  The  leaders  of  the 
revolt,  however,  had  so  far  availed  themselves  of  their 
opportunities  that  the  new  administration  sought  in  vain 
the  appliances  of  Government  to  which  it  would  have  other- 
wise succeeded.  The  mints,  forts,  dockyards  and  armories 
of  the  country  had  been  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
administrative  arm,  for  in  instances  where  they  had  not 
been  actually  transferred  to  the  custody  of  the  seceding 
forces,  the  arteries  of  communication  that  had  connected 
these  citadels  of  strength  with  the  seat  of  Government  had 
been  severed,  and  the  federal  authorities  were  thus  shut  up 
in  Washington,  with  no  immediate  means  for  even  a  defen- 
sive campaign. 

The  prosecution  of  the  war  necessitated  the  organization 
of  an  army  and  navy  which,  in  numerical  proportions  at 
least,  were  entirely  without  precedent.  The  supplies,  am- 
munition and  various  accoutrements  demanded  by  this' 
immense  force  at  once  exhausted  the  circulating  fund  of 
national  treasure,  and  the  Government  sought  to  put  its 
department  of  finance  in  a  position  to  meet,  not  only  obli- 
gations already  due,  but  also  those  rapidly  approaching 
maturity.  To  secure  these  ends,  the  National  Banking 
System  was  established,  and  evidences  of  indebtedness, 
various  in  form,  character  and  denomination,  and  amount- 
ing in  the  aggregate  to  the  sum  of  $2,901,510,468,  all  of 
which  will  hereafter  receive  a  separate  cpnsideration,  were 
either  put  in  circulation  as  current  funds  or  negotiated  as 
loans  in  the  different  money-marts  of  the  world. 

The  perpetuation  of  slavery  was  the  grand  object  for 
which  the  rebellion  was  waged.  This  element  of  the  strife 
suggested  the  propriety  of  a  change  in  our  organic  law,  and 
the  proposed  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  our  Federal  Con- 
stitution was  submitted  to  the  States  for  ratification. 


INTRODUCTORY.  15 

The  war  closed,  but  the  indiscretion  of  Executive  action 
prolonged,  as  its  cowardice  and  hypocrisy  had  precipitated, 
our  difficulties.  The  Republican  party  bore  its  burden 
in  patience  till  1869,  but  in  the  mean  time  measures  of  the 
gravest  and  most  important  character  that  were  ever  pressed 
upon  the  attention  of  a  government  demanded  considera- 
tion. The  States  had  ratified  the  proposed  addition  to  our 
Constitution,  and,  as  such,  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  had 
been  officially  promulgated.  Suppletory  provisions,  how- 
ever, were  deemed  advisory,  and  after  submission  to  and 
ratification  by  the  States,  the  adoption  of  the  constitutional 
article  now  known  as  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  was 
officially  declared.  The  animosities  of  the  recently-con- 
tending factions,  moreover,  awaited  reconciliation,  and  the 
needed  revival  of  industrial  pursuits  absolutely  required  that 
these  discordant  elements  should  be  recomposed.  For  the 
attainment  of  these  ends  the  Reconstruction  Acts  and  their 
execution  followed.  The  work  of  re-creation,  however,  was 
not  at  this  point  complete.  The  country  had  incurred  an 
enormous  debt,  and  provision  for  its  payment  was  impera- 
tive. A  scheme  of  internal  taxation  was  consequently  put 
into  operation,  and  a  tariff  upon  imports  was  established. 
The  first-named  measure  has  provoked  criticism,  not  merely 
as  to  its  wisdom,  but  in  some  respects  as  to  its  legality,  and 
the  last-named  has  again  arrayed  against  each  other  the 
opposing  forces  of  Protection  and  Free  Trade.  The  Four- 
teenth Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  moreover,  failed  to 
satisfy  the  adherents  of  the  administration,  and  the  legal 
sanction  of  the  States  was  asked  to  another  proposed  addi- 
tion to  our  fundamental  law.  The  sanction  was  given,  and 
the  thus  constituted  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  our  Federal 
charter  was  officially  announced.  The  maintenance  of  the 
national  credit  seemed  possible  to  the  Government  only  by 
pursuance  of  systematic  action  in  paying  the  public  debt, 
and  this,  in  connection  with  collateral  causes,  has  evolved  a 


1 6  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

funding  scheme,  approved  by  many  and  inveighed  against 
by  not  a  few.  Continued  disturbances  at  the  South  have 
given  rise  to  a  species  of  force  legislation  on  the  part  of 
Congress,  the  propriety  of  which  is  questioned  by  the  whole 
of  the  Democratic  and  a  portion  of  the  Republican  party. 
The  long- looked-for  provision  of  Universal  Amnesty  has 
not  yet  been  made,  whereat  its  advocates,  who  constitute  a 
respectable  and  by  no  means  a  small  proportion  of  both 
political  organizations,  find  cause  for  the  censure  of  a  policy 
the  further  continuance  of  which  they  claim  to  be  a  useless 
and  enervating  proscription.  Grave  defects  in  the  workings 
of  the  departments  for  the  collection  of  taxes  and  customs, 
together  with  alleged  abuses  of  official  patronage,  have 
caused  a  demand,  and  in  no  respect  a  party  one,  for  a 
reform  in  our  Civil  Service.  In  the  metropolis  of  the 
nation,  moreover,  a  clan  of  adventurers,  deriving  their 
chief  support  from  the  foreign  element,  have  subverted  the 
municipal  government,  robbed  the  treasury,  illegally  mulcted 
its  taxpayers,  given  to  the  State  of  New  York  an  established 
Church,  bid  defiance  to  the  laws  to  which  they  are  amen- 
able, and  with  their  enormous  hoard  of  stolen  treasure  have 
dared  to  reach  out  their  shameless  hands  to  seize  the  reins 
of  the  Federal  Government. 

From  these  facts  spring  the  present  issues  of  American 
politics. 

The  object  of  the  chapters  following  this  Introductory  is 
to  discuss  the  issues  presented  by  this  record,  basing  the 
examination  of  the  same  upon  such  facts  as  alone  appear  to 
be  relevant  and  material.  For  the  sake  of  logical  propriety, 
and  to  avoid  confusion,  the  subjoined  remarks  will  be 
divided  into  four  parts,  and  the  constituent  elements  of 
each  submitted  to  a  separate  consideration. 

Part  I.  will  be  entitled  "Monetary  and  Financial  Topics," 
and  thereunder  attention  will  be  directed  to  the  subjects 
of  "Money  and  Currency;"  "The  Money  and  Currency 


INTRODUCTOR  Y.  1 7 

of  the  United  States;"  "Banks  and  Banking  Business  in 
General;"  "The  National  Banking  System;"  "Public 
Debts  and  Funding  Schemes,"  and  "  The  Public  Debt  and 
Funding  Scheme  of  the  United  States." 

Part  II.  will  be  styled  "Existing  and  Proposed  Changes 
in  our  Organic  and  Municipal  Law."  Under  this,  "The 
Constitutional  Amendments,"  "  Reconstruction,"  "  Force 
Legislation,"  "Amnesty,"  and  "Civil  Service"  will  be 
treated  of  in  their  respective  order. 

Part  III.  will  be  designated  "  Industrial  and  Revenue 
Legislation."  This  heading  will  embrace,  as  sub-subjects, 
"  Protection  and  Free  Trade,"  "  Tariffs," and  "Taxation," 
with  a  careful  examination  of  the  same  as  applied  to  the 
present  condition  of  this  country. 

Part  IV.  will  be  entitled  "  Representative  Government," 
wherein  "The  Elements  of  Representative  Government," 
"Suffrage,"  "Minority  Representation,"  and  "The  Cen- 
tralization of  Power"  will  receive  a  detailed  investigation. 

Parts  I.  and  III.  embrace  the  subjects  which  in  the  Preface 
were  styled  economic,  while  Parts  II.  and  IV.  include  those 
which  are  purely  political.  These  respective  Parts,  with 
their  kindred  subjects,  were  placed  out  of  consecutive  order 
for  the  purpose  of  affording  the  reader  an  agreeable  change 
from  the  necessarily  close  line  of  discussion  which  the 
examination  of  economic  topics  always  assumes,  to  what 
is  generally  considered  the  more  entertaining  field  of 
inquiry  which  is  opened  by  an  acquaintance  with  purely 
political  investigations.  As  the  several  Parts  in  respect  to 
subjects  are  entirely  disconnected,  the  arrangement  above 
noted  works  no  violence  to  logical  order  or  consistency. 
2» 


PART  I. 

MONETARY  AND  FINANCIAL  TOPICS. 


EXPLANATORY. 

A  REMARK  in  the  Preface  intended  for  general  guidance 
2~\.  demands  a  special  application  in  this  connection. 
Reference  is  had  to  the  statement  there  made  that  the  discus- 
sions of  the  various  subjects  of  this  work  are  initiated  by 
expositions  of  abstract  principles.  This  is  particularly  so 
in  the  case  of  the  topics  above  entitled.  As  to  those  em- 
braced in  Parts  II.,  III.  and  IV.,  this  abstract  comment  is 
not  only  very  brief,  but  also,  in  most  instances,  an  integral 
instead  of  a  separate  portion  of  the  main  investigation,  and 
therefore,  while  indispensable  to  the  general,  is  by  no  means 
wearisome  to  the  scientific,  reader.  The  nature  of  the  sub- 
jects included  in  Part  L,  however,  rendered  a  more  detailed 
examination  of  abstract  propositions  an  absolute  prerequisite 
to  the  practical  discussion  of  the  same  ;  and  although  these 
surveys  of  fundamental  principles  assume  to  be  the  vehicle 
of  very  much  matter  which  is  both  new  and  interesting, 
and  challenge  from  all  parties  the  most  careful  attention, 
yet  the  reader  who  is  versed  in  the  elements  of  Political 
Economy  may  or  may  not  regard  them  worthy  of  perusal. 
To  readers  of  a  more  restricted  knowledge  they  are  important 
in  the  extreme.  The  limits  of  these  elementary  inquiries 
of  Part  I.  are  designated  by  Division  First  of  the  third  and 
the  whole  of  the  first  and  fourth  chapters. 

19 


20  THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

CHAPTER   I. 

MONEY  AND  CURRENCY.  ' 

Money  with  the  Ancients — The  Requisites  of  Money — What  is  Money  ? 
— The  Offices  of  Money — A  Measure  of  Value — The  Standard  in  the 
United  States — A  Medium  of  Exchange — A  Producer  of  Value — The 
Relations  of  Money  to  Commerce — The  Amount  Needed — The 
Balance  of  Trade — Interest — The  Prospective  Decline  in  the  Value 
of  Money — The  Kinds  and  Substitutes  of  Money — Convertible  Cur- 
rency— Inconvertible  Currency,  or  Paper  Money — The  Proper  Limits 
of  both — Excessive  Issues  of  the  same. 

THE  opening  chapter  of  this  treatise  will  be  devoted  to 
a  statement  of  the  causes  to  which  Money  owes  its 
origin,  and  an  examination  of  the  theoretical  elements  and 
practical  uses  of  the  same  for  purposes  of  commerce. 

The  history  of  the  world  presents  no  more  forcible  illus- 
tration of  the  success  of  human  effort  in  devising  means  for 
the  attainment  of  ends  than  is  found  in  the  existence  of 
that  peculiar  factor  of  wealth  which  has  been  christened 
with  the  magnetic  name  of  Money;  and  though  it  can 
"neither  open  new  avenues  to  pleasures,  nor  block  up  the 
passages  of  anguish,"  Money,  materially  speaking,  is  the 
sole  and  universal  agent  which  effects  the  permutation  of 
property,  and  elevates  man  from  his  primal  state  of  an 
ignorant  huntsman  to  the  higher  and  advancing  stages  of 
an  affluent  and  intelligent  civilization. 

The  human  race  has  emerged  from  archaic  barbarism  by 
a  well-defined  series  of  upward  gradations.  The  ancients 
of  the  Eastern  World  made  their  first  record  upon  the  his- 
toric page  as  simple  followers  of  the  chase.  This  finding 
stage,  however — if  such  a  term  may  be  used — was  of  short 
duration.  It  required  but  a  little  time  to  develop  the  fact 
to  these  primitive  savages  that  constant  employment  in  this 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  21 

direction  brought  far  greater  returns  than  were  necessary 
to  satisfy  the  only  wants  attendant  upon  their  condition — 
namely,  those  of  food  and  covering.  The  whole  of  the  game 
obtained  by  this  hunting  life  was,  consequently,  no  longer 
condemned  to  slaughter,  but  the  excess  above  that  required 
for  physical  sustenance  and  protection  was  herded  and  tended 
upon  the  open  field.  In  the  record  of  this  change  the  second 
general  condition  of  these  Eastern  people  is  seen  to  be  the 
pursuance  of  a  nomadic  or  pastoral  life.  But  in  these  early 
times  of  barbaric  simplicity,  as  in  the  present  age  of  extended 
culture,  one  advance  step  only  begat  another.  The  fallow 
land  of  this  pastoral  people  soon  refused  to  yield  the  neces- 
sary verdure  for  their  ever-increasing  flocks,  and  necessity 
here  first  inaugurated  the  cultivation  of  the  soil.  This 
epoch  notes  the  dawn  of  the  agricultural  period,  the  third 
step  in  the  transmission  of  the  human  race  from  a  savage  to 
a  civilized  condition.  To  this  period  the  inhabitants  of 
the  earth  were  mere  consumers  of  its  spontaneous  fruits, 
but  when  they  assumed  the  position  of  tillers  of  the  ground 
they  opened  for  themselves  and  their  successors  the  bound- 
less field  of  productive  industry.  With  the  induction  of 
this  era  man  ceased  to  be  a  mere  passive  recipient  of  the 
perennial  gifts  of  the  soil,  and  by  the  donation  of  labor 
elected  himself  to  a  peerage  with  the  forces  of  nalffre  in 
persuading  a  responsive  earth  to  augment  its  natural  prod- 
ucts and  disseminate  its  hidden  wealth.  He  had  at  last 
become  a  producer,  and  here  stood  upon  the  threshold  of 
civilization. 

Every  transition  of  the  Eastern  ancients  from  these 
primordial  stages  of  barbarism  to  the  agricultural  period 
was  but  a  practical  demonstration  of  the  law  which  has  a 
Divine  source  and  sanction — namely,  that  man  to  live  must 
advance,  that  life  is  progress,  that  repose  is  death.  This 
law  was  now  to  receive  an  application  of  a  double  character. 

The   agricultural   era   was   no   sooner  inaugurated,   the 


22  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

loiterers  upon,  had  no  sooner  become  tillers  of,  the  ground, 
the  consumer  had  no  sooner  been  changed  to  a  producer, 
than  two  difficulties  presented  themselves  which  required  a 
simultaneous  solution.  Implements  were  necessary  for  the 
prosecution  of  agricultural  art,  and  the  want  could  be 
supplied  only  by  the  slow  processes  of  invention  and  crea- 
tion. To  design  and  construct  the  requisite  appliances  for 
tillage,  and  then  apply  them  to  their  practical  purpose  in 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  and  this,  moreover,  by  every 
individual  or  clan,  thus  necessitating  as  many  preparatory 
and  determinate  operations  of  tillage  as  there  were  followers 
of  the  pursuit,  so  trammeled  the  capacity  of  labor  that  it 
eventuated  in  little  or  no  reward.  Experience,  the  only 
teacher  of  these  ignorant  barbarians,  soon  showed  them 
the  necessity  of  allotting  the  invention  and  construction  of 
tools  and  implements  to  one,  and  the  employment  of  the 
same  for  purposes  of  tillage  to  another,  class  of  their  popula- 
tion, as  distinct  and  exclusive  vocations.  The  employment 
of  the  entire  time  of  one  clan  in  designing  and  creating 
means  for,  and  that  of  another  in  applying  these  means  to, 
the  purposes  of  agriculture,  at  once  surrounded  the  respec- 
tive classes  with  necessities  which,  though  imperative,  were 
at  the  same  time  reciprocal.  The  artisan  required  the  agri- 
culturist's products  of  the  soil  for  food,  and  the  tiller  of 
the  land  stood  in  need  of  the  artisan's  implements  of  tillage ; 
consequently,  each  gives  to  the  other  the  result  of  his 
separate  and  exclusive  labor,  and  in  so  doing  satisfies  his 
peculiar  wants.  In  thus  disposing  of  the  difficulties  which 
arose  with  the  induction  of  the  agricultural  period,  these 
unlettered  ancients  established,  although  in  a  rude  and 
restricted  manner,  the  two  great  principles  of  political 
science  which  always  go  hand  in  hand,  which  are  always 
extended  or  contracted  in  exactly  a  relative  ratio,  which,  in 
short,  are  found  only  in  a  state  of  co-existence — the  laws  of 
Exchange  and  Division  of  Labor. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  2$ 

The  law  that  life  is  progress  soon  impelled  an  additional 
advance  into  the  boundaries  of  civilization,  after  tracing 
which  the  consideration  of  the  subject-matter  proper  of  this 
chapter  will  be  next  in  order.  Exchange  and  Division  of 
Labor,  unattended  by  any  collateral  law,  were  unavoidably 
confined  within  the  narrow  limits  of  giving  one  product  for 
another  in  exact  equivalents — a  rule  of  justice,  but  at  the 
same  time  one  of  inefficiency.  An  artisan  at  the  end  of  a 
season  of  productive  labor,  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration 
of  these  periods  of  restricted  agriculture  and  exchange, 
would  find  a  stock  of  wares  upon  his  hands,  but  no  food. 
He  seeks  to  make  an  exchange  of  his  wares  for  the  produce 
of  an  agriculturist,  that  he  may  satisfy  his  wants.  The  party 
to  whom  he  first  makes  application  has  an  excess  of  the 
required  products  of  the  soil,  but  is  not  in  need  of  any 
implements  of  tillage.  Another  agriculturist,  however,  of 
whom  the  artisan  seeks  an  exchange,  is  in  want  of  his  imple- 
ments of  tillage,  but  has  no  excess  of  the  required  produce 
to  give  as  an  equivalent  therefor.  The  artisan  accordingly 
seeks  to  transfer  his  goods  to  this  second  tiller  of  the  soil, 
and  receive  from  him  something  which  shall  be  a  symbol 
of  the  value  of  the  material  and  labor  of  which  his  imple- 
ments are  composed,  and  with  this  token  of  their  worth  to 
obtain  from  the  first  agriculturist  the  coveted  food  of  which 
he  has  an  excess.  In  this  transaction  every  party  thereto 
•receives  a  substantial  benefit.  The  artisan  secures  his 
means  of  physical  subsistence,  the  second  agriculturist 
obtains  his  needed  implements  of  tillage,  while  the  first 
makes  a  disposition  of  his  excess  of  produce,  and  receives 
jherefor  a  symbol  of  the  value  of  the  labor  which  produced 
it.  The  circumstances  vary,  and  this  symbol  of  value  may 
be  in  the  possession  of  one  or  another  of  these  three,  or  of 
many  different  parties,  as  a  representative  of  the  worth  of  the 
articles  with  which  he  or  they  have  parted.  But  wherever 
it  is,  it  is  a  means  for  the  extension  of  productive  industry 


24  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

and  the  disposition  of  superfluous  fruits  of  labor.  In  this 
combination  of  the  laws  of  Exchange  and  Division  of  Labor, 
and  the  perfection  of  the  former  by  the  use-  of  a  circulating 
symbol  which  should  at  the  same  time  effect  exchanges  and 
measure  the  value  of  commodities,  commerce  takes  root 
and  civilization  finds  its  origin.  This  commercial  system 
these  Eastern  ancients  rudely,  to  be  sure,  fully  and  fairly 
established.  Their  early  symbols  of  value  were  uncouth 
and  inconvenient,  it  is  true ;  still,  they  satisfied  the  purposes 
of  sale.  Homer,  for  instance,  records  the  fact  that  Diomede 
purchased  his  armor  for  nine  oxen,  an  example  of  a  very 
primitive  symbol  of  value.  Farther  on  in  history,  salt, 
shells,  sugar,  and  finally  the  precious  metals,  by  reason  of 
their  scarcity  and  difficulty  of  attainment,  are  recorded  as 
current  symbols  of  value  and  worth.  In  the  establishment 
of  this  rude  species  of  commerce,  in  the  homely  motive  of 
these  untutored  Eastern  tribes  in  exchanging  articles  for 
something  which,  in  the  first  place,  should  be  a  symbol  of 
the  value  of  the  labor  and  materials  of  which  the  same  were 
composed,  and  which,  in  the  second  place,  should  have  a 
capacity  of  exchange  for  other  articles  of  an  equivalent 
corresponding  to  the  value  represented  by  the  symbol, — in 
this  custom,  and  in  the  motive  which  founded  the  custom, 
are  found  the  two  great  fundamental  constituents  of  Money, 
which  in  its  various  ramifications  will  now  receive  appro- 
priate consideration. 

The  further  treatment  of  this  subject  will  consist,  as 
already  stated,  in  an  examination  of  the  theoretical  ele- 
ments and  practical  uses  of  Money.  This  discussion  will 
be  conducted  in  the  following  order: 

I.  The  Requisites  of  Money. 
II.  What  is  Money? 

III.  The  Offices  of  Money. 

IV.  The  Relations  of  Money  to  Commerce. 
V.  The  Kinds  and  Substitutes  of  Money. 


$IONE  Y  AND  CURRENC  Y.  2$ 

I.  THE  REQUISITES  OF  MONEY. 

The  requisites  of  Money  are  both  material  and  potential 
— material,  in  that  it  shall  possess  certain  qualities  of  a 
purely  inherent,  intrinsic  character ;  potential,  in  that  it  shall 
have  certain  external  capacities,  entirely  separate  and  distinct 
from  its  materialistic  attributes.  Of  these  in  their  order. 

1.  The   material  requisites   of  Money  are — (a)  That  it 
shall  be  a  substance  of  either  such  scarcity  or  difficulty  of 
attainment  as  to  incur  cost  in  its  production,  that  it  shall 
be  an  exponent  of  labor — in  short,  that  it  shall  denote  value; 
(£)  that  it  shall  be  a  substance  of  such  costly  production, 
a  symbol  of  such  extended  labor,  a  token  of  such  great 
value,  that  it  shall  represent,  in  small  particles,  full  equiv- 
alents of  the  various  and  bulky  commodities  of  commerce ; 
(c)  that  it  shall  be  a  substance  the  production  of  which 
shall,  at  all  times,   involve  a  similar  and   corresponding 
amount  of  labor  and  search,  and  thus  possess  a  uniform 
value;  (d)  that  it  shall  be  an  indestructible  substance;  (e) 
that  it  shall  be  a  substance  easily  divisible;  (/)  that  it 
shall  be  a  substance  possessing  ductility.     The  reasons  why 
an  article  to  be  used  as  a  circulating  medium  should  possess 
these  material  qualities  are  too  apparent  to  require  either 
statement  or  elucidation. 

2.  The  potential  requisites  of  Money  are — (a)  That  it 
shall  receive   the   unqualified    indorsement   of  the   entire 
community  for  the  purposes  of  circulation  ;  (£)  and,  more 
important  than  all,  that  it  shall  bear  a  visible  impress  of  the 
sanction  of  the  Government  within  whose  territory  it  is 
produced  and  disseminated. 

These  are  the  principal  requisites  of  Money.  The  last 
named  suggests  an  examination  of  the  principles  and  modes 
of  coinage.  Such  a  discussion,  however,  would  be  a  clear 
digression,  not  only  from  the  scope  of  the  present  chapter, 
but  also  from  the  entire  treatise ;  and  comment  upon  this 
a  it 


26  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

topic  will  therefore  be  entirely  omitted,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  slight  allusion  to  seignorage  and  the  relative  coined 
value  of  the  precious  metals,  which  will  be  made  when 
"The  Offices  of  Money"  shall  form  the  subject  of  investiga- 
tion. The  matter  is  referred  to,  in  this  connection,  simply 
for  the  sake  of  logical  propriety. 

With  due  regard  to  the  necessary  qualifications  of  a  cir- 
culating medium  as  above  described,  the  nations  of  the 
entire  world,  from  the  remotest  period  of  civilization,  and 
from  some  of  the  later  stages  of  barbarism  even,  have  made 
use  of  the  precious  metals  for  purposes  of  Money.  The 
exact  date,  however,  of  the  inauguration  of  a  metallic  cur- 
rency— of  the  period  when  man  first  summoned  the  glistening 
metal  from  its  hiding-place  in  the  inner  earth,  and  by  the 
name  of  Money,  made  it  a  crystal  messenger  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  commerce,  and  thereby  wed  the  human  race 
to  the  cause  of  civilization — of  the  induction  of  a  custom 
which  has  ever  since  had  the  sanction  of  law, — the  date  of 
this  happy  and  momentous  event  slumbers  among  the 
mysteries  of  the  unrecorded  past.  History  gives  us  no 
record  of  it,  and  the  wondrous  beauty  of  even  "The  Lost 
Arts"  has  inscribed  for  it  no  tablet  upon  the  annals  of 
literature. 

II.  WHAT  is  MONEY? 

The  consideration  of  the  requisites  of  Money  has  opened 
the  path  for  an  answer  to  this  inquiry ;  or,  in  other  words, 
a  definition  of  Money  is  now  logically  appropriate.  Money, 
in  its  restricted  sense,  consists  of  pieces  of  metal  of  ascer- 
tained weight,  determinate  value  and  given  fineness,  bearing 
the  impress  of  the  sanction  of  Government  as  to  its  exchange- 
able worth,  and  also  the  authority  of  Government  for  its 
circulation.  The  further  discussion  of  this  subject,  until 
"  The  Kinds  and  Substitutes  of  Money"  shall  engage  atten- 
tion, will  refer  entirely  to  a  circulating  medium  of  this 
restricted  metallic  character. 


MONEY  AND    CURRENCY.  2J 

III.  THE  OFFICES  OF  MONEY. 

The  way  is  now  prepared  for  an  examination  of  one  of 
the  most  important  sub-subjects  of  this  chapter — namely, 
"The  Offices  of  Money." 

The  functions  of  Money  are  threefold  :  i,  as  a  measure 
of  value ;  2,  as  a  circulating  medium  or  means  of  exchange ; 
and  3,  as  a  producer  of  value. 

i.  Money,  it  has  been  said,  is  a  measure  of  value.  It  is 
a  mere  nominal  measure,  and  nominal  for  the  reason  that 
its  own  value  is  subject  to  fluctuation  and  change.  The 
ultimate  measure  of  all  value  is  labor,  and  ultimate  because 
all  value  is  based  upon  and  produced  by  labor.  A  brief 
analysis  of  value  makes  these  two  principles  more  apparent. 
Value  is  of  two  kinds — value  for  purposes  of  use,  and  value 
for  purposes  of  exchange.  An  illustration  of  these  respect- 
ive kinds  of  value  may  assist  this  investigation.  A  man  of 
extended  culture  and  refined  taste  obtains,  by  reason  of  his 
peculiar  wants,  at  a  great  expense,  a  plot  of  ground  which 
has  surroundings  of  romantic  scenery.  At  an  additional 
great  expense,  on  account  of  his  admiration  for  art  and  a 
bent  for  unique  accompaniments,  he  erects  a  dwelling  and 
lays  out  his  grounds.  His  elegant  possessions  are  of  great 
value,  but  of  great  value  only  for  his  particular  use.  This 
man  of  taste  and  lover  of  art  is  laid  low  by  death.  His 
heirs  are  obliged  to  part  with  their  ancestor's  elaborate 
home,  and  their  only  available  purchaser  may  be  a  man 
who  wants  a  house  only  for  shelter  and  ground  only  for 
the  purpose  of  cultivation ;  and  just  exactly  what  these 
beautiful  possessions  are  worth  for  the  purposes  of  shelter 
and  cultivation  is  what  can  alone  be  realized  from  their 
disposal.  A  railway  corporation,  moreover,  under  pursu- 
ance of  an  authority  given  it  by  the  State,  in  accordance 
with  the  right  of  eminent  domain,  may  wish  to  lay  its  road- 
bed directly  through  these  grounds  that  have  been  dedicated 


28  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  art,  and  the  damages  the  corporation  would  be  obliged 
to  pay  would  simply  be  the  value  of  the  ground  to  a  man 
of  ordinary  tastes  and  habits.  The  value  of  the  particular 
love  of  the  owner  for  these  elegant  possessions  cannot  be 
appreciated  in  money.  On  the  other  hand,  a  laboring 
man  may  be  possessed  of  an  ingot  of  rare  metallic 
quartz.  It  is  of  no  possible  value  to  the  laborer  in  use, 
but  of  great  and  determinate  value  in  exchange.  Its 
value  is  not  subject  to  depression  by  any  such  delicate 
causes  as  affect  wealth  which  has  a  mere  value  for  purposes 
of  use.  Now,  labor  is  the  ultimate  measure  of  the  value  of 
the  elegant  possessions  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  ingot 
of  quartz  on  the  other — the  ultimate  measure  of  the  value 
of  the  elegant  possessions,  because  they  are  worth  just  that 
amount  of  labor  which  would  suffice,  at  an  ordinary  valua- 
tion, to  purchase  those  elegant  possessions  for  the  use  of  a 
man  of  ordinary  tastes  and  habits.  It  is,  moreover,  the 
ultimate  measure  of  the  value  of  the  ingot  of  quartz,  for 
the  reason  that,  comparatively  speaking,  the  same  amount 
of  labor  will  produce  an  ingot  of  quartz  at  all  times  and 
under  all  circumstances.  Money,  however,  is  only  the 
nominal  measure  of  both  of  these  species  of  wealth,  because, 
by  reason  of  unusual  productiveness  or  non-productiveness 
of  mines,  or  collateral  causes,  it  is  itself  subject  to  varia- 
tion and  change  of  value;  while  labor,  speaking  in  the 
abstract,  so  far  as  its  material  results  are  concerned,  will 
accomplish  the  same  in  a  given  space  at  all  times,  and 
under  all  conditions. 

This  train  of  thought  has  been  pursued  in  a  somewhat 
extended  manner,  because  its  importance  seemed  to  demand 
it ;  and  if  the  fact  is  borne  in  mind  that  Money  is  not  the 
absolute,  but  the  nominal  or  relative,  measure  of  value,  the 
further  discussion  of  the  entire  subject  will  be  comparatively 
unclouded.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add  the  remark  that, 
although  Money  is  not  the  absolute,  it  is,  by  reason  of  a 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  2Q 

compliance  more  perfect  than  that  given  by  any  other 
substance  to  the  material  requisites  of  a  circulating  medium, 
hereinbefore  noticed,  the  nearest  possible  absolute  measure 
of  value  of  any  material  token  that  can  be  produced. 

The  basis  upon  which  Money  rests  as  a  measure  of  value 
is  not  the  quantity  but  the  cost  of  production.  In  other 
words,  the  labor  requisite  to  produce  Money,  and  not  the 
quantity  of  Money  so  produced,  is  the  constituent  element 
which  makes  it  a  measure  of  value.  It  will  be  remembered, 
in  this  connection,  that  this  entire  discussion,  thus  far, 
refers  exclusively  to  Money  in  its  restricted  signification — 
to  metallic  Money.  The  truth  of  this  principle  is  clearly 
apparent.  A  laboring  man  who  purchases  a  loaf  for  his 
frugal  meal,  and  a  prince  of  commerce  who  buys  the  product 
of  a  million  spindles,  are  both  required  by  the  law  of  ex- 
change to  give  an  equivalent  for  the  articles  which  have 
passed  to  their  possession.  Now,  the  equivalent  for  the 
loaf  is  the  value  of  the  labor  which  produced  and  cooked 
the  cereal  which  constitutes  it ;  and  the  equivalent  for  the 
product  of  the  spindles  is  the  value  of  the  labor  which 
bought  the  sheep,  grew  the  wool  and  tended  the  process  of 
manufacture  of  which  the  cloth  is  composed.  The  question 
now  arises — In  what  way  is  the  value  of  the  loaf  and  cloth, 
and  of  the  substances  offered  as  their  equivalents,  to  be 
measured  ?  Now,  labor,  as  already  observed,  is  the  sole 
constituent  essence  of  both  the  cloth  and  the  loaf.  Con- 
sequently, the  only  exact  and  the  only  just  way  of  measur- 
ing the  value  of  the  substance  proposed  as  an  equivalent  for 
this  loaf  and  cloth  is  to  see  that  the  same  amount  of  labor 
was  necessary  to  produce  this  substance  as  was  required  to 
create  the  piece  of  cloth  or  single  loaf  for  which  this  sub- 
stance is  offered  in  exchange.  For  further  proof  of  this 
principle  let  this  affirmative  be  supplemented  by  a  negative 
line  of  discussion.  Let  the  supposition  be  made  that  the 
stocks  of  merchandise  in  the  city  of  New  York  have  a 
3» 


30  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

marketable  value  of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  Let 
it  also  be  supposed  that  it  requires  a  million  of  dollars,  and 
no  more,  to  float  this  merchandise  through  the  different 
channels  of  commerce.  Let  this  volume  of  circulating 
medium  be  increased  till,  instead  of  one,  it  shall  amount  to 
five  millions  of  dollars.  Will  it  require  more  dollars  under 
this  last  condition  of  things  to  buy  a  bale  of  cloth  or  a 
barrel  of  sugar  than  it  did  under  the  first  ?  Comparatively 
speaking,  never !  The  reason  is  simple,  and  consequently 
entirely  clear.  Money,  as  already  seen,  possesses  certain 
material  as  well  as  potential  properties.  These  material 
properties  give  to  Money  an  inherent,  intrinsic  worth.  It 
is,  itself,  reducible  to  a  commodity.  The  substance  of 
which  it  is  formed  enters  into  many  rare  and  coveted 
articles  of  commerce.  As  such  a  commodity  it  always  has 
a  determinate  market  value — namely,  the  cost  of  the  labor 
which  produced  it ;  and  when,  therefore,  in  its  province  of 
a  circulating  medium,  Money,  by  reason  of  its  profuseness, 
ceases  to  realize  its  possessor  the  cost  of  the  labor  which 
created  it,  the  excess  immediately  finds  its  way  to  the 
chemist's  crucible  or  the  jeweler's  bench,  from  whence  it 
emerges,  on  the  one  hand,  to  serve  the  purposes  of  science, 
and  on  the  other  to  decorate  the  devotees  of  fashion  and 
grace  the  table  of  a  prince. 

A  brief  allusion  to  what  has  been  made  the  standard 
measure  of  value  in  the  United  States  will  properly  close 
these  remarks  upon  the  first  function  of  Money.  At  a  time 
when  this  country  has  a  paper  circulation  of  about  seven 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and,  comparatively  speaking, 
not  a  dollar  of  specie  in  use  as  a  means  of  exchange,  it 
may  provoke  a  smile  to  note  the  assertion  that  gold  is  the 
standard  measure  of  value  of  the  United  States.  And  yet 
such  is  the  fact.  At  least,  gold  is  the  declared,  if  not  the 
actual,  standard  measure  of  value  in  this  country.  Prior  to 
the  year  1853,  silver  and  gold  both  formed  the  standard 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  3! 

measure  of  value.  This  law  was  maintained,  of  course,  only 
by  declaring  how  many  grains  of  silver  should  equal  one 
grain  of  gold.  In  other  words,  a  constant  relativity  was 
necessitated  between  the  two  metals.  The  ever-varying 
divergence  in  the  cost  of  production  between  these  two 
metals,  owing  to  success  and  failure  in  mining  and  to  the 
changing  demand  for  each  for  purposes  of  commerce, 
rendered  the  system  of  having  two  legal  measures  of  value 
so  troublesome  and  repugnant  that  Congress  in  1853  made 
gold  the  sole  standard  in  the  United  States. 

The  Government,  moreover,  charges  a  seigniorage  for 
coining  the  precious  metals — one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  for 
gold,  and  three-fourths  of  one  per  cent,  for  silver.  The 
reason  and  object  of  seigniorage  should  perhaps  receive  a 
passing  allusion.  Seigniorage  is  the  remuneration  which 
the  Government  receives  for  coining  bullion  into  Money. 
The  United  States  formerly  performed  this  office  as  a 
gratuity,  but  the  system  was  productive  of  evil,  and  was 
consequently  abandoned.  The  nature  of  the  evil  will 
appear  in  the  following  statement  of  the  effect  of  an  estab- 
lished system  of  seigniorage.  It  operates  to  enhance  the 
price  of  coined  bullion.  For  instance,  if  the  Government, 
by  way  of  taking  a  seigniorage  for  coining,  puts  ninety-five 
cents'  worth  of  gold  only  into  a  dollar,  it  renders  that 
dollar  worth  five  cents  more  for  purposes  of  Money  than 
for  commercial  use.  Seigniorage  consequently  prevents 
the  withdrawal  and  melting  up  of  specie  for  manufacturing 
purposes,  and  drives  the  worker  of  the  precious  metals  to 
seek  his  raw  material,  if  such  an  expression  may  be  used, 
from  holders  of  bullion,  and  so  relieves  the  Government 
mints  from  repeatedly  coining  the  same  identical  metal, 
and  prevents,  to  this  extent,  disturbance  in  the  relative 
quantity  of  circulation. 

2.  The  office  of  Money  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  for 
the  most  part,  rests  upon  the  same  fundamental  principles 


32  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

that  have  just  been  stated  in  the  discussion  of  its  first  func- 
tion. The  examination  of  this  second  office  of  Money, 
therefore,  will,  to  avoid  repetition,  be  apparently,  as  an 
isolated  topic,  somewhat  curtailed.  Whatever  matter,  how- 
ever, may  seem  in  this  connection  to  be  wanting,  will  be 
found  in  the  examination  of  the  last  sub-subject,  and  in 
the  remarks  farther  on  upon  the  relations  of  Money  to 
commerce. 

The  necessity  of  a  medium  of  exchange  begins  with  the 
inauguration,  and  grows  with  the  extension,  of  Division  of 
Labor ;  and  Exchange  and  Division  of  Labor,  moreover, 
only  arise  when  mankind  occupies  the  position  of  a  pro- 
ducer. They  do  not  arise  upon  the  immediate  induction 
of  a  system  of  productive  industry,  but  are  both  preceded 
by  one  other  transition  period.  This  transition  era,  how- 
ever, is  of  a  very  brief  duration,  and  the  law  which  governs 
it  is  the  restricted  rule  of  barter.  Barter,  properly  speak- 
ing, is  the  exchange  of  commodities  in  exact  equivalents. 
The  inadequacy  of  this  rude  and  restricted  system  of  com- 
merce, it  will  be  remembered,  was  of  a  twofold  character. 
It  ceased  to  be  efficient,  first,  when  an  exchange  of  com- 
modities having  different  equivalents  was  desired ;  and 
second,  when,  by  reason  of  various  wants,  and  isolated 
opportunities  to  supply  such  wants,  it  became  necessary 
that  there  should  be  more  than  two  parties  to  effect  a  satis- 
factory transposition  of  commodities.  And  thus,  as  neces- 
sity, in  the  first  instance,  created  Exchange  and  Division 
of  Labor,  so  in  the  second  instance  this  uncompromising 
agent  inaugurated  a  medium  of  exchange,  and  that  medium, 
for  reasons  before  noticed,  was  Money. 

3.  The  third  and  last  office  of  Money  is  that  of  a  pro- 
ducer of  value.  This  function  of  Money  grows  out  of  the 
two  preceding  ones.  So  true  is  this  last  statement  that  an 
assertion  of  the  paradox  is  almost  warranted  that  Money 
as  a  producer  of  value  acts  in  an  entirely  passive  capacity. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  33 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  discussions  of  philosophy  as 
to  primal  causes,  whatever  may  have  been  the  opinions 
which  were  advocated  by  the  metaphysicians  of  Athens  or 
the  schoolmen  of  Charlemagne  as  to  the  cause  of  creation, 
certain  it  is  that  mankind  dwells  upon  a  world  of  matter. 
The  mandate  of  The  Divine  Author,  when  He  first  entrusted 
man  with  the  exclusive  dominion  of  matter — "  Subdue  it !" 
— for  ever  has  and  ever  will  be  law.  The  device  of  man 
may  promulgate  statutes  and  establish  codes  to  either 
extend  or  abridge  the  principles  of  the  common,  which 
are  assumed  to  be  founded  upon  those  of  the  higher,  law, 
but  this  first  grand  injunction  of  Omnipotence  admits  of 
no  repeal.  It  is  a  condition  in  the  great  trust-deed  by 
which  man  holds  the  title  to  material  earth,  and  is  as 
rigid  and  unchangeable  as  the  penalty  attached  to  the 
crime  of  man's  disobedience:  "In  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
shalt  thou  eat  bread."  The  means  for  complying  with  the 
requisition  of  this  primal  command  are  suggested  in  the 
character  of  the  primal  curse.  It  is  to  be  effected  by  labor. 
Labor  creates  value,  but  what,  in  the  mean  time,  supports 
labor?  Two  things — the  fruits  of  other  labor,  of  antecedent 
toil,  and  the  credit-power  which  the  possession  of  these 
fruits  always  brings  to  their  holder.  There  is  no  fact  more 
fully  proven  by  mercantile  experience  than  that  an  in- 
dividual who  possesses  a  certain  amount  of  wealth  can 
procure  upon  credit  commodities  the  value  of  which 
greatly  exceed  the  value  of  his  immediate  possessions. 
The  quantity  of  productive  industry,  therefore,  which  an 
individual  can  keep  in  operation  is  measured  by  the  value 
of  his  capital  and  the  extent  of  his  credit.  Now,  this 
capital  and  the  credit-power  which  springs  from  its  pos- 
session are,  so  to  speak,  labor  concreted  into  Money,  for 
both  are  measured  by  and  reducible  to  Money.  Every 
branch  of  productive  industry,  moreover,  if  properly  based 
and  pursued,  eventuates  in  a  profit,  and  this  profit  is  more 

1)2 


34  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

labor  concreted  into  Money,  which,  in  turn,  assumes  the 
support  of  new  industrial  enterprises.  Again,  the  prosecu- 
tion of'  every  industrial  pursuit  creates  a  demand  for  other 
values,  such  as  raw  material,  and  food  and  clothing  for  the 
workmen  which  the  enterprise  engages.  Money,  then,  is 
a  producer  of  value  in  three  respects :  First,  because  its 
possession  gives  a  credit-power  which  operates  to  extend 
the  sphere  of  industrial  pursuits ;  second,  because  in  sup- 
porting labor  new  profits  are  evolved,  new  values  created  ; 
third,  because  in  supporting  any  productive  industry,  in 
supporting  labor,  it  causes  the  creation  of  other  values 
which  the  prosecution  of  this  particular  industrial  pursuit 
demands.  Money,  moreover,  is  a  producer  of  value  in 
these  three  directions,  for  the  simple  reason  that  by  it 
values  are  measured  and  exchanged.  The  creation  of  a 
measure  of  value  and  a  medium  of  exchange,  as  already 
seen,  constitutes  the  very  foundations  of  commerce,  and 
when  we  take  from  Money  these  respective  offices  we  also 
rob  it  of  its  capacity  of  producing  value.  For  if  commodi- 
ties, so  to  speak,  cannot  be  put  into  commercial  circulation, 
whence  comes  the  impetus  for  further  production? 

IV.  THE  RELATIONS  OF  MONEY  TO  COMMERCE. 

The  consideration  of  the  relations  of  Money  to  com- 
merce is  next  in  order.  The  discussion  of  this  topic  will 
be  pursued  under  the  following  heads:  i,  the  amount  of 
Money  needed  for  commercial  purposes ;  2,  the  character 
of  Money  needed ;  3,  the  theory  of  balance  of  trade ;  4, 
interest. 

The  amount  of  Money  needed  for  commercial  purposes 
is  that  sum  which  will  effect  the  necessary  exchanges  of 
commodities.  This  is  a  very  simple  proposition,  but  it 
involves  questions  of  the  most  delicate  and  complex  charac- 
ter. The  history  of  our  own  and  other  countries  furnishes 
more  instances  of  national  calamity  by  reason  of  inability 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  35 

to  comprehend,  or  unwillingness  to  respect,  this  simple 
proposition  than  can  be  traced  to  any  other  source.  Viola- 
tions of  this  simple  maxim  by  undue  extensions  of  the 
various  substitutes  for  metallic  Money  have  rendered  the 
code  commercial  of  continental  Europe  a  myth,  paralyzed 
the  mercantile  interests  of  Great  Britain,  and  more  than 
once  within  the  present  century  have  plunged  the  com- 
merce of  the  United  States  into  almost  an  inextricable  state 
of  confusion  and  disorder.  Money  is  a  very  mysterious 
agent,  and  commerce  a  most  delicate  institution.  The 
offices  of  the  first  and  wants  of  the  last  are  of  a  purely 
mutual  and  relative  character,  and  whenever  the  two  are  at 
variance  it  is  always  by  reason  of  violent  convulsions  of 
state  or  similar  causes  of  extraneous  origin.  In  such 
seasons  of  confusion  and  disorder  metallic  Money  immedi- 
ately renounces  its  allegiance  and  retires  from  the  service 
of  its  commercial  chief.  The  pulse  of  commerce  is  also 
exceedingly  sensitive.  It  claims  to  be,  as  it  is,  the  only 
infallible  judge  of  its  moneyed  demands,  and  demurs  to  all 
external  supervision  of  its  wants  in  this  respect.  At  the 
slightest  interference  in  this  direction  it  sends  a  note  of 
warning  with  electric  rapidity  through  every  avenue  of  the 
business-world ;  and  whenever  its  condition  is  chronicled 
as  one  of  disease  or  disorder,  it  is  pretty  safe  to  conclude 
that  its  metallic  servant,  Money,  has  rebelled  against  this 
foreign  influence,  and  retired  from  its  peculiar  field  of 
labor,  until  its  commercial  master  can  give  undoubted  asr 
surance  that  the  disturbing  forces  have  been  put  to  flight. 

The  amount  of  Money  required  to  effect  the  necessary 
exchanges  of  commodities  is  based  upon  the  relative  rapidity 
with  which  Money  and  commodities  circulate.  As  an  illus- 
tration of  this  principle,  let  the  circulation  of  an  article  be 
taken  which,  from  its  "cash"  character,  militates  most 
strongly  against  it— namely,  flour.  The  flouring-mills  of 
our  wheat-growing  sections  of  country  will  fill  the  orders 


36  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  wholesale  houses  of  approved  credit,  located  either  upon 
our  Atlantic  or  Pacific  seaboards,  or  in  any  of  our  great 
commercial  marts,  upon  what  is  known  in  mercantile  par- 
lance as  "sixty  days'  time."  Allow  a  period  of  eight  days 
for  transportation  from  the  mills  to  these  wholesale  dealers, 
and  the  latter  will,  in  turn,  make  shipments  to  any  jobbing 
house  of  good  standing  which  will  not  require  more  than 
three  days  for  transportation  by  reason  of  the  frequency 
of  wholesale  marts,  upon  "  thirty  days'  time."  The  jobber 
also  will  make  sales  to  his  retail  trade,  which,  by  reason 
again  of  the  frequency  of  jobbing  houses,  will  not  require 
more  than  one  day  for  transportation,  upon  a  similar  credit 
of  thirty  days.  The  retailer,  moreover,  will  divide  a  barrel 
of  flour  into,  upon  an  average,  sixteen  packages,  and  distri- 
bute the  same  among  as  many  of  his  laboring  customers,  to 
be  paid  for  upon  the  first  day  of  the  month  next  succeeding. 
It  will  be  seen  that  four  out  of  the  thirty  days  allowed  for 
the  passage  of  the  money  from  the  sixteen  consumers  to 
the  wholesale  house  have  been  occupied  in  transportation. 
Four  days  more  may  be  allowed  for  the  money  to  pass  from 
the  consumers  to  the  wholesaler,  leaving  twenty-two  out  of 
the  original  thirty  days  in  which  the  money  was  to  be  in 
the  possession  of  the  latter.  Very  good !  Seven  days 
more  may  now  be  allowed  for  contingencies,  and  still  keep 
within  the  letter  of  these  several  contracts ;  for  it  will  be 
remembered  that  the  retailer  sells,  not  upon  a  month's 
credit,  but  until  the  close  of  the  month  in  which  the  sale  is 
made,  until  the  laboring  customers'  "pay-day;"  which,  as 
these  sales  in  small  quantities  are  daily  occurrences,  makes 
an  average  credit  of  not  more  than  fifteen  days.  In  the 
exchange  of  this  commodity  it  is  thus  seen  that  a  barrel  of 
flour  has  become  the  property  of  nineteen  different  indi- 
viduals before  any  payment  of  the  purchase-money  has 
been  made  or  required,  showing  a  circulation  of  flour,  in 
comparison  with  that  of  Money,  as  nineteen  tp  one. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  37 

The  truth  of  the  principle  claimed  by  this  line  of  discus- 
sion is  too  apparent  to  require  extended  examination,  and 
the  argument  formerly  held  by  many  authorities,  that  the 
sum  of  Money  requisite  for  the  exchange  of  commodities 
was  one  equal  -to  the  exchangeable  value  of  all  articles  in 
commercial  circulation,  is  entirely  refuted  by  consistent 
and  continuous  historic  facts.  The  amount  of  circulating 
medium  in  the  United  States,  for  instance,  immediately 
prior  to  the  late  Civil  War,  was  about  $335,000,000,  not 
including  in  this  estimate,  of  course,  $90,000,000  held  by 
the  banks  in  specie  as  a  legal  reserve.  Upon  the  basis  of 
the  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  at  Washington,  it  is 
estimated  that  about  $3,000,000,000  worth  of  commodities 
were  in  circulation  in  this  country  at  that  time.  The  gross 
production  of  the  country,  by  exact  investigation,  was 
shown  to  be  a  little  less  than  $4,000,000,000;  conse- 
quently, the  above  estimate  is  not  an  unfair  one.  But  this 
$4,000,000,000  worth  of  commercial  products,  as  above 
cited,  did  not  include  that  species  of  intangible  commod- 
ities which  are  represented  by  professional  and  similar 
labor ;  so  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  $4,000,000,000  of  com- 
modities were  at  this  time  in  circulation  ;  and  this  estimate 
leaves  $1,000,000,000  worth  of  tangible  commodities  to 
be  consumed  without  traversing  the  avenues  of  commerce, 
which  is  certainly  a  liberal  allowance  in  that  direction.  It 
is  consequently  seen  that  $335,000,000  furnished  ample 
transportation  for  $4,000,000,000  worth  of  commodities 
through  the  numerous  and  deviating  paths  of  commerce,  in 
addition  to  effecting  exchanges  and  sales  of  real  estate. 
Similar  facts  might  be  cited  from  English  history,  but  such 
a  course  seems  wholly  unnecessary. 

A  discussion  of  the  excess  and  scarcity  of  Money,  and 
the  effects  of  both  upon  commerce,  logically  speaking, 
would  be  next  in  order;  but  as  such  a  condition  of  the 
Money  market  is  confined  exclusively  to  a  paper  circula- 

4 


38  THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tion,  this  topic  will  be  deferred  till  "  The  Kinds  and  Substi- 
tutes of  Money ' '  shall  form  the  subject  of  investigation.  Ref- 
erence is  here  had  to  this  point  solely  for  logical  complete- 
ness, for  so  far  as  metallic  Money  is  concerned,  it  has  already 
been  shown  that,  owing  to  its  material,  intrinsic  qualities, 
and  consequent  determinate  value  for  commercial  purposes, 
any  and  every  excess  of  it  always  finds  its  way  into  the  list 
of  commercial  commodities.  Upon  the  same  principle — 
namely,  that  Money  as  a  medium  of  exchange  is  based 
upon  the  cost  of  production,  that  is,  upon  the  value  of  the 
labor  which  created  it — there  is  never  a  scarcity  of  metallic 
Money,  barring  the  single  improbable  possibility,  if  such  an 
expression  may  be  allowed,  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  mines 
from  whence  it  is  procured.  In  both  cases,  so  far  as 
metallic  Money  is  concerned,  the  law  that  labor  seeks  that 
employment  which  yields  the  largest  recompense  bars  any 
possibility  of  an  excess  or  scarcity  of  a  circulating  medium. 

The  amount  of  Money,  again,  necessary  for  an  exchange 
of  commodities  increases  with  the  extension  of  Division  of 
Labor.  This  proposition  is  stated  more  as  a  self-evident 
truth  than  as  a  point  the  maintenance  of  which  requires 
discussion.  It  is  perfectly  apparent  that  as  new  offshoots 
are  made  from  old  branches  of  productive  industry,  an 
additional  amount  of  circulating  medium  will  be  needed  to 
effect  exchanges  of  these  new  products. 

This  topic  of  the  amount  of  Money  needed  for  the  proper 
exchange  of  commodities  will  pass  from  consideration  with 
a  single  allusion  to  what  constitutes — or  rather  what  should 
constitute — the  regulator  of  the  quantity  of  a  metallic  circu- 
lating medium.  As  has  been  hereinbefore  insisted,  com- 
merce is  the  only  proper  judge  and  supervisor  of  its  moneyed 
necessities.  Commerce  is  not  a  parsimonious  miser,  which 
requires  a  legislative  guardian  to  gorge  its  reluctant  coffers 
with  mineral  wealth  ;  neither  is  it  a  profligate  spendthrift, 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  39 

demanding  a  similar  supervisory  power  to  set  a  limit  upon 
its  reckless  and  extravagant  disbursements  ;  but,  located  far 
above  the  powers  that  assume  to  watch  its  incomings  and 
outgoings,  with  its  faithful  and  omnipresent  sentinel,  Labor, 
noting  by  its  flux  and  reflux  the  ever-varying  localities  of 
plenty  and  want,  it  is  its  own  great  conservator,  and  by  a 
law  as  changeless  as  that  which  brings  light  and  darkness 
with  every  revolution  of  the  earth  around  the  son,  it  sends 
its  metallic  postboys  to  scatter  the  products  of  industry 
through  every  channel  of  the  business-world,  in  just  such 
numbers  and  just  such  localities  as  are  suggested  by  the 
growth  or  wane  of  industrial  pursuits ;  and  that  law  is  two- 
fold— namely,  that  scarcity,  on  the  one  hand,  enhances 
price  and  drives  Money  to  purchase  in  fields  of  plenty,  and 
that  plenty,  on  the  other  hand,  diminishes  price  and  drives 
products  to  sell  in  fields  of  want.  This  law,  moreover, 
bears  upon  the  theory  of  Balance  of  Trade,  which  will  soon 
come  under  discussion. 

2.  The  next  point  that  comes  up  for  consideration  is  the 
character  of  Money  required  for  commercial  purposes. 
The  function  of  Money  as  a  medium  of  exchange  suggests 
its  character,  in  one  respect  at  least — namely,  that  it  should 
possess,  as  near  as  possible,  a  character  of  perfect  stability 
and  certainty.  The  dealings  of  the  commercial  world  are 
mostly,  so  to  speak,  in  future ;  that  is,  they  consist  of  what 
the  law  terms  executory  instead  of  executed  contracts. 
With  the  exception  of  petty  purchases  for  the  satisfaction 
of  every-day  wants,  the  commodities  of  commerce  are  sub- 
jects of  contracts  which  are  to  be  complied  with,  so  far  as 
payments  of  Money  are  concerned,  at  some  future  period. 
Such  contracts  are  based  and  predicated  upon  what  is  con- 
sidered will  be  the  value  of  Money  at  that  deferred  day  of 
payment.  All  loans  of  Money  for  long  periods  are  based 
upon  this  same  calculation,  and  if  by  any  emergency  the 


4O  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

value  of  Money  at  the  final  day  of  execution  of  such  deferred 
contracts  and  obligations  shall  be  either  enhanced  or  depre- 
ciated, the  creditor  gains  perhaps  not  an  unjust,  but  cer- 
tainly an  unexpected,  advantage  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
debtor  a  similar  advancement  on  the  other.  The  first 
characteristic  Money  should  possess  for  purposes  of  com- 
merce is  therefore  one  of  stability. 

The  second  characteristic  demanded  of  Money  for  com- 
mercial purposes  is,  that  it  shall  be  extended  only  so  far  as 
will  enable  it  to  measure  the  value  of  commodities  upon 
the  same  relative  basis  as  that  by  which  such  value  is  meas- 
ured in  foreign  countries,  provided  the  measure  of  value  in 
foreign  countries  is  the  natural  metallic,  and  not  a  local 
one.  This  proposition  again  brings  to  notice  the  topics  of 
excess  and  scarcity  of  a  circulating  medium,  neither  of 
which,  as  already  seen,  ever  occurs  where  such  circulating 
medium  is  of  a  metallic  character.  The  consideration  of 
these  two  subjects  is  therefore  again  postponed  till  "The 
Kinds  and  Substitutes  of  Money"  shall  engage  attention, 
when  the  foregoing  proposition,  here  laid  down  for  com- 
pleteness' sake,  will  be  restated  and  properly  explained. 

3.  The  relation  of  Money  to  commerce  in  connection 
with  the  theory  of  Balance  of  Trade — which,  it  is  claimed, 
may  be  either  a  bane  or  a  blessing — now  requires  examina- 
tion. Of  all  subjects  upon  which  political  economists  and 
legislators  have  held  conflicting  opinions,  there  are  none 
which  have  elicited  more  general  discussion  than  the  theory 
of  Balance  of  Trade.  The  public  councils  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  Portugal,  the  United  Netherlands  and  the  United 
States  have  often  resounded  with  words  of  hot  and  angry 
debate  between  the  enemies  and  supporters  of  this  much- 
mooted  question,  while  in  the  humbler  walks  of  life  rigid 
lines  have  been  drawn  between  its  opponents  and  advocates; 
and  still  the  problem  divides  private  organizations  and  great 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  4! 

political  parties  which,  upon  almost  every  other  topic  affect- 
ing the  public  welfare,  are  in  perfect  harmony  and  concord. 
The  theory  grows  out  of  the  Protective  Policy,  but  neither 
that  nor  the  opposing  doctrine  of  Free  Trade  will  occupy  a 
place  in  the  present  discussion.  The  immediate  topic  is  the 
relation  of  Money  to  this  theory.  Stating  the  question  in 
its  prejudicial  light,  the  theory  is  that  excessive  importations 
— that  is,  imports  in  excess  of  exports — drain  a  country  of 
specie,  and  so  impoverish  it.  A  proper  investigation  of 
the  subject  will  warrant  the  following  statements  :  (a)  that 
a  country  the  value  of  whose  annual  products  exceeds  the 
value  of  its  annual  consumption  will  never  for  a  long  time 
import  more  than  it  exports ;  (b}  that  a  country  never 
enters  upon  a  stage  of  impoverishment  until  the  value  of 
its  annual  products  is  less  than  the  value  of  its  consump- 
tion ;  (c)  that  an  occasional  excess  of  imports  over  exports 
furnishes  no  evidence  that  a  country  is  in  a  state  of  im- 
poverishment, but  that  such  occasional  excesses  of  importa- 
tion are  due  to  causes  entirely  extraneous  from  that  of 
poverty ;  (//)  that  the  moneyed  wealth  of  any  country  is 
never  permanently  diminished  by  the  Balance  of  Trade 
standing  against  it,  unless  consumption  is  greater  than  pro- 
duction. 

The  first  proposition  is  a  simple  statement  in  another 
form  of  the  law  referred  to  when  the  topic  of  the  requisite 
amount  of  Money  necessary  for  commercial  purposes  was 
under  discussion — namely,  that  scarcity,  on  the  one  hand, 
enhances  price  and  drives  Money  to  purchase  in  fields  of 
plenty,  and  that  plenty,  on  the  other  hand,  diminishes  price 
and  drives  products  to  sell  in  fields  of  want.  Now,  a  nation 
may,  for  two,  three,  five  or  more  years,  while  developing 
particular  branches  of  productive  industry  or  while  engaged 
in  war,  make  importations  in  excess  of  exports,  and  yet,  if 
home  consumption  does  not  exceed  production,  be  all  the 

4* 


42  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

while  amassing  national  wealth,  though  in  the  mean  time 
it  is  constantly  exporting  coin  and  bullion  to  make  good 
the  Balance  of  Trade  that  stands,  for  the  time,  against  it. 
For  example,  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  annual  products  of 
the  United  States  have  a  value  of  $4,000,000,000  ;  that  the 
value  of  imports  is  $350,000,000,  and  that  of  exports 
$225,000,000.  These,  in  round  numbers,  are  very  nearly 
the  value  of  the  products,  imports  and  exports  of  this 
country  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1861 — a  year 
which  shows  a  larger  Balance  of  Trade  against  the  United 
States  than  any  other  during  the  last  decade — namely,  by 
the  above  figures  (which  are  a  little  in  excess  as  to  imports, 
and  the  opposite  as  to  exports),  a  balance  of  $125,000,000. 
Now,  even  if  the  consumption  of  the  United  States,  upon 
the  above  basis,  equals  the  enormous  sum  of  $3,875,000,000, 
the  national  ledger  is  simply  balanced,  and  the  country  has 
neither  made  nor  lost  a  dollar ;  but  by  as  much  as  the  con- 
sumption of  the  country  is  less  in  value,  upon  this  basis, 
than  $3,875,000,000,  by  so  much  has  the  nation  added  to 
its  public  wealth.  That  this  wealth  is  represented  by  com- 
modities instead  of  Money  does  not  prove  the  impoverish- 
ment of  the  country,  for  the  measure  of  the  value  of  both 
the  commodities  and  the  Money  is  labor ;  and  if  the  forces 
of  the  latter  are  continued  in  the  employment  of  producing 
commodities  instead  of  Money — specie — their  plenty,  at 
some  future  day,  will  drive  them  out  of  the  country  for  sale, 
and  the  flow  of  specie  will  then  be  inward  instead  of  out- 
ward. It  is  a  matter  which  governs  itself,  and  so  long  as 
production  exceeds  consumption  a  nation  will  not  for  any 
length  of  time  import  more  than  it  exports.  The  history 
of  the  United  States  for  the  last  twelve  years  fully  proves 
the  proposition,  and  this  at  a  period  when  our  exporting 
trade  for  one- half  the  time  was  disturbed  and  paralyzed  by 
civil  war. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  43 

The  account  stands  as  follows  : 

Year.  Imports.  Exports. 

1859 $3I7>873,053 $335,894,385 

1860 335,233,232 373,189,284 

1861 -315,004,726 228,699,486 

1862 188,902,263 213,069,519 

1863 226,796,336 305,884,998 

1864 3°9>3°5>955 320,035,199 

1865 216,441,495 323,743,187 

1866 430,770,041 550,684,277 

1867 397,222,067 438,577,312 

1868 349,023,682 454,301,713 

1869 412,140,841 413,961,115 

1870 431,950,428 499,092,143 


Total $3,930,664,119 $4,457,132,618 

The  above  is  taken  from  the  report  of  the  Commissioner 
of  Statistics,  and  is  correct.  It  does  not  include  Southern 
imports  and  exports  during  the  war,  as  no  complete  returns 
in  those  respects  have  yet  been  published. 

It  is  thus  seen,  both  by  theory  and  practice,  that  a  nation 
whose  production  does  not  fall  below  consumption  will 
not  for  any  length  of  time  import  more  than  it  exports. 
The  import  and  export  history  of  this  country,  as  seen  in 
the  foregoing  table,  moreover  shows  that  this  is  a  matter 
which  regulates  itself,  on  the  theory  that  an  excess  of  com- 
modities in  one  locality  will  eventually,  to  a  certain  extent, 
change  places  with  an  excess  of  Money  in  another.  The 
table  shows  that  in  the  years  1859  and  1860,  our  exports 
exceeded  our  imports.  In  the  year  1861  this  was  reversed, 
and  in  1862  we  again  exported  more  than  we  imported. 
So  again  from  the  year  1863  to  the  year  1870  inclusive — in, 
however,  greatly  varying  proportions. 

The  second,  third  and  fourth  statements,  laid  down  in 
connection  with  the  one  which  has  just  passed  from  discus- 
sion, are  proven  by  the  same  line  of  argument  which  has 
been  adduced  to  support  the  first.  They  will,  conse- 


44  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

quently,  not  receive  a  separate  examination,  but  a  little 
general  comment,  applicable  to  all  three,  will  close  this 
review  of  the  relation  which  Money  bears  to  the  theory  of 
Balance  of  Trade. 

Balance  of  Trade,  in  a  great  measure,  is  secured  by  the 
successful  establishment  and  prosecution  of  industrial  pur- 
suits— by  the  advancement  of  productive  industry.  That 
is  one  way.  A  country  may,  however,  by  refusing  to  make 
any  extended  importations,  retain  a  hold  upon  its  Money, 
and  so  ship,  for  the  time  being,  more  than  it ,  receives. 
That  is  another  way.  But  a  pursuance  of  the  latter  course 
for  any  length  of  time — that  is,  of  refusing  to  import 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  having  the  Balance  of  Trade  stand 
in  its  favor — will  render  the  road  to  the  point  where  con- 
sumption exceeds  production  very  short  and  easy  of  transit. 

The  golden  chain  of  commerce  encircles  not  one  conti- 
nent alone,  but  the  entire  globe.  This  globe  has  many 
geographical  divisions,  and  these  geographical  divisions 
possess,  in  many  instances,  climates  of  an  entirely  different 
character.  Their  products  are  consequently  of  a  most 
diversified  sort,  and  each  one,  so  to  speak,  has  certain  spe- 
cialties, for  the  production  of  which  the  laws  of  Nature 
have  granted  it  an  exclusive  monopoly — letters-patent  of  a 
climatic  stamp.  The  peculiar  products  of  these  varied  di- 
visions are  some  seasons  below,  and  again  in  excess  of,  the 
demand  from  extraneous  sources.  In  years  of  plenty,  there- 
by producing  cheapness,  these  products  will  be  driven  out 
by  Money  from  some  other  division  where  analogous  causes 
have  produced  an  excess  of  it,  and  vice  versa.  In  conclu- 
sion, then,  the  relation  of  Money  to  Balance  of  Trade  is 
such  that  a  drain  of  specie  from  a  country  does  not  neces- 
sarily argue  its  impoverishment.  A  nation  never  reaches  a 
period  of  impoverishment  till  consumption  exceeds  produc- 
tion. A  country  whose  production  exceeds  consumption 
will  never,  for  any  length  of  time,  import  more  than  it  ex- 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  45 

ports,  and  so  have  a  Balance  of  Trade  against  it.  Now, 
whether  a  protective  policy  is  requisite  to  sustain  productive 
industries,  and  so  regulate  this  theory,  is  entirely  another 
question,  and  is,  in  this  connection,  neither  denied  nor 
affirmed. 

4.  Interest. — The  next  relation  of  Money  to  commerce 
requiring  attention  is  that  which  forms  the  subject  of  Inter- 
est. A  large  proportion  of  the  business  pursuits  of  every 
country  are  conducted  by  means  of  borrowed  capital,  and 
for  the  use  of  such  capital  the  borrower  pays  a  remunera- 
tion. Interest,  then,  may  be  said  to  be  Money  paid  for  the 
use  of  Money,  and  the  prices  which  determine  the  extent 
of  this  remuneration — what  the  rate  of  Interest  shall  be — 
are  both  natural  and  artificial.  The  natural  forces  are 
those  arising  from  the  age  and  commercial  status  of  nations. 
The  artificial  forces  consist  of  arbitrary  restraints  imposed 
by  statute  law.  These  two  governing  elements  will  first 
engage  attention,  when  some  incidental  remarks,  bearing 
upon  the  subject  of  Interest  in  general,  will  close  the  exam- 
ination of  this  topic. 

The  first  of  the  natural  forces  which  influences  the  rate 
of  interest  is  the  age  of  the  country  in  which  Money  finds 
employment.  Money  will  always  command  a  higher  rate 
of  interest  in  new  countries  than  in  old,  from  the  fact  that 
new  governments,  as  well  as  their  subjects,  are  borrowers, 
while  old  ones  are  not,  except  in  the  emergency  of  war. 
Governments,  except  for  war-uses,  borrow  Money  only  for 
the  purpose,  so  to  speak,  of  creating  fixed  capital.  Unlike 
individuals,  they  do  not  hire  Money  to  establish  enterprises 
which  are  expected  to  yield  an  immediate  moneyed  return, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  prosecuting  projects  which  redound 
to  the  benefit  of  the  entire  people,  which,  in  part,  enable  all 
the  inhabitants  of  a  country  to  engage  in  industrial  pursuits 
from  which  immediate  moneyed  returns  will  be  received. 
These  uses  which  governments  have  for  Money  arc  the  crec- 


46  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tion  of  public  buildings,  opening  of  highways,  establish- 
ment of  fortifications,  armories  and  navy-yards,  the  build- 
ing of  docks,  the  organization  of  fleets,  the  perfection  of 
means  of  navigation,  etc.,  etc.  The  period  required  for 
the  attainment  of  these  ends  varies,  of  course,  in  different 
countries  and  under  different  circumstances,  but  history 
proves  that  new  countries  occupy,  upon  an  average,  a 
period  of  full  two  hundred  years  in  perfecting  this  material 
organism  of  government.  During  such  periods  the  govern- 
ment demands  for  Money  will  inevitably  enhance  the  rate  of 
interest. 

The  second  of  the  natural  forces  which  influence  the 
rate  of  interest  grows  out  of  the  existence  of  the  first.  It 
is  the  age  of  a  nation's  commerce.  In  new  countries,  when 
industrial  pursuits  are  in  their  infancy,  competition  is 
limited,  profits  large,  the  incentive  to  extension  of  business 
consequently  great,  and  large  rates  of  interest  are  readily 
obtained.  As  the  different  branches  of  productive  industry 
are  extended,  although  thereby  more  capital  is  demanded — 
which  fact  at  first  thought  would  seem  to  operate  toward 
an  increase  of  the  wages  of  Money — the  rate  diminishes, 
because  by  reason  of  the  competition  the  profits  are  reduced, 
and  however  great  maybe  the  amount  of  Money  demanded, 
the  earnings  of  a  business  determine  the  sum  of  Money  that 
can  be  paid  for  capital  to  conduct  it. 

The  third  of  the  natural  forces  which  bear  upon  the  rate 
of  interest  is  the  diseased  or  healthy  condition  of  a  nation's 
productive  industry.  With  industrial  pursuits  disturbed, 
and  commerce  consequently  paralyzed,  the  rate  of  interest 
rises  not  so  much  by  reason  of  a  scarcity  of  Money  as  from 
the  element  of  fear  and  uncertainty  which  capitalists  enter- 
tain as  to  making  investments.  On  the  other  hand,  with 
industry  and  commerce  in  a  prosperous  condition  the  rate 
of  interest  usually  recedes,  for  although,  as  already  seen, 


MONEY  AND    CURRENCY.  47 

the  amount  of  Money  required  is  large,  the  rate  of  interest 
is  governed  by  the  rate  of  accruing  profits. 

The  attempt  by  artificial  force  of  statute  law  to  determine 
the  rate  of  interest  for  Money  has  been  adopted  in  almost 
every  civilized  government,  and  always  proved  a  failure. 
The  earlier  law  of  England  made  it  a  criminal  offence  to 
receive  interest  for  Money  to  any  extent.  In  other  words, 
it  forbid  interest ;  but  the  only  effect  of  the  law  was  to 
enhance  the  rate  the  lender  would  have  been  willing  to 
receive  in  the  absence  of  the  statute,  by  so  much  as  he  con- 
sidered would  remunerate  him  for  incurring  the  risk  of  suf- 
fering the  prescribed  penalty.  The  French  edict  of  1 766, 
reducing  the  legal  rate  from  five  to  four  per  cent.,  was  simi- 
larly avoided  ;  and  all  the  usury  laws  of  the  United  States — 
for  usury  laws  these  arbitrary  restraints  of  statute  are — have 
proved  entirely  inoperative.  The  theory  of  a  usury  law  is 
untenable,  for  the  reason  that  the  use  of  Money  will  bring 
just  what  the  projects  and  business  of  the  borrower  can 
afford  to  pay ;  and  yet,  if  a  usury  law  could  secure  univer- 
sal compliance,  it  would  entirely  put  to  flight  one  of  the 
greatest  disturbers  of  commercial  peace — namely,  specula- 
tion. The  irrepressible  passion  of  man,  however,  to  sell  his 
wares  in  the  best  market  and  at  the  highest  possible  price 
renders  such  statutes  a  dead  letter,  and  when  partially  en- 
forced, as  they  ever  only  are,  they  prejudice  the  national  or 
State  prosperity  by  driving  home-capital  to  foreign  locali- 
ties for  investment. 

The  somewhat  prevalent  notion  that  an  increase  in  the 
amount  of  mineral  wealth,  of  metallic  Money,  will  diminish 
the  rate  of  interest,  is  a  fallacy.  Money  is  measured  in 
value  by  labor,  and  when  by  reason  of  excess  it  will  not 
loan  for  a  sufficient  sum  to  realize  the  cost  of  the  labor 
which  produced  it,  it  seeks  employment  in  commerce  as  an 
article  of  trade. 

The  future  rate  of  interest  in  the  United  States  cannot, 


48  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

by  any  possibility,  be  very  much  diminished  for  a  long 
period  to  come.  The  immense  amount  of  territory  yet  to 
be  developed,  the  extension  of  our  present  industrial  pur- 
suits and  the  creation  of  new  ones,  the  moneyed  needs  of 
Government, — these  and  a  train  of  collateral  causes  render 
the  reduction  of  the  rate  of  interest  in  this  country  impos- 
sible for  probably  fifty  years. 

This  somewhat  extended  topic  of  The  Relations  of 
Money  to  Commerce  will  be  concluded  by  a  brief  allusion 
to  the  effect  which  the  prospective  decline  in  the  value  of 
Money  will  have  in  the  commercial  world.  Since  the 
discovery  of  the  North  American  mines,  their  continued 
and  increasing  productiveness,  added  to  the  capacity  of 
those  of  South  America,  Australia  and  the  Spanish  and 
Peruvian  possessions,  results  in  a  relatively  greater  supply 
of  the  precious  metals  than  is  required  for  the  combined 
purposes  of  a  circulating  medium  and  for  the  fabrication 
of  metallic  articles  of  commerce.  As  already  seen,  an 
excess  of  metallic  circulating  medium  never  creates  a  per- 
manent diminution  of  the  value  of  Money,  so  long  as 
there  is  not  an  excess  of  the  raw  metals  for  purposes  of 
productive  industry.  An  excess  of  the  latter  character, 
however,  denotes  the  limit  of  consumptive  demand,  and 
hence  the  present  decline,  necessarily  slow,  in  the  value  of 
the  mineral  wealth  of  the  entire  world.  This  decline,  as 
already  indicated,  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  a  rapid  one. 
The  demand  for  raw  metal  for  the  fabrication  of  elegant 
wares  will  not  probably  increase  in  an  equal  ratio  with  the 
supply,  on  account  of  the  inexorable  rule  in  the  code  of 
fashion  which  will  allow  no  other  definition  of  either  beauty 
or  taste  in  the  matter  of  ornament  except  the  element  of 
difficulty  attaching  to  the  procurement  of  articles  for  such 
uses.  Exhaust,  or  rather  very  nearly  exhaust)  the  world's 
supply  of  common,  ordinary  granite  stone,  and  it  would 
appear  first  among  the  entrees  upon  every  jeweler's  bill  of 


MONEY  AND  CURRENCY.  49 

fare  who  caters  for  the  ornamental  wants  of  the  fashionable 
world.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  supply  for  the 
purposes  of  a  circulating  medium  will  not  bear  such  a  pro- 
portionate increase  over  the  demand  as  will  be  found  in 
the  uses  of  commerce.  The  task  of  internal  improvement 
before  the  United  States  as  a  government  is  yet  wellnigh 
boundless,  and  the  development  of  productive  industries 
by  its  people  is  in  only  an  incipient  stage ;  both  of  which 
facts  will  militate  against  the  diminution  in  the  demand 
for  the  precious  metals  for  the  purposes  of  Money.  Mr. 
Bowen  has  collected  the  authorities  upon  this  point,  and 
treated  the  whole  subject  with  his  usual  completeness 
and  elegance  of  thought  and  rhetoric  in  his  admirable 
work  on  Political  Economy,  wherein  he  estimates  that  at 
the  close  of  the  present  century  metallic  Money  will  pos- 
sess about  one-half  of  the  exchangeable  value  that  it  did 
in  the  year  1854.  The  decline  will  be  extended  over  so 
long  a  period  that  its  effect  will  not  be  particularly  prejudi- 
cial to  commercial  pursuits.  The  prices  of  labor  and  com- 
modities will  advance  in  a  ratio  proportionate  to  the  de- 
cline, and  the  constant  depreciation  will  be  hardly  percep- 
tible, except  in  two  instances — those  of  long-deferred  debts 
and  contracts.  In  these  cases  the  debtor  class  will  gain  a 
substantial  pecuniary  advantage,  and  the  benefit  of  this 
sort  which  will  accrue  to  our  Government  in  the  redemp- 
tion of  bonds,  the  payment  of  which  is  long  deferred,  will 
be  by  no  means  inconsiderable. 

V.  THE  KINDS  AND  SUBSTITUTES  OF  MONEY. 
The  consideration  of  Money  in  its  restricted  sense — of 
metallic  Money — is  here  concluded.     The  remaining  por- 
tion of  this  chapter  will  be  devoted  to  an  examination  of 
the  various  kinds  and  substitutes  of  Money,  when,  in  the 
next   succeeding    one,  the    Money  and    Currency  of  the 
United  States  will  engage  particular  attention. 
ft  C 


50  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

All  substitutes  for  Money  are  embraced  under  the  generic 
term  of  Currency.  Currency  is  of  two  kinds — that  payable 
or  convertible  in  specie  upon  presentation  at  the  place 
of  issue,  and  that  payable  or  convertible  in  specie  at  some 
fixed  or  indefinite  future  period.  In  the  description  of  the 
last  species  of  currency  is  found  a  proper  definition  of 
paper  Money,  and  the  deduction  to  be  made  from  this 
paragraph  is  that,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  but  one  substi- 
tute for  Money,  namely — currency;  that  currency  is  of 
two  sorts,  convertible  and  inconvertible,  and  that  a  circu- 
lating medium  may  be  made  up  of  either  metallic  or  paper 
Money,  or  convertible  paper  currency,  or  by  a  mixture  of 
the  last  two. 

This  discussion  will  proceed  under  two  main  divisions : 

1.  Convertible  Currency ; 

2.  Inconvertible  Currency,  or  Paper  Money. 

Under  the  first  main  division  will  be  embraced  the  fol- 
lowing sub-subjects,  which  will  be  treated  of  in  their  order  : 
(a)  The  basis  of  convertible  currency ;  (£)  the  theory 
and  utility  of  the  same ;  (Y)  its  characteristics ;  (*/)  the 
proper  amount  of  a  convertible  issue ;  (i)  the  effect  of  an 
excessive  issue  of  the  same  upon  commerce. 

(a)  The  basis  of  convertible  currency  is  faith  in  the 
honesty  and  pecuniary  resources  of  moneyed  institutions 
and  moneyed  men  who  make  the  issue  of  such  a  currency 
their  peculiar  and  exclusive  vocation.  It  is,  in  short, 
credit.  In  the  present  age  of  extended  commerce,  and 
amid  the  ever-changing  shifts  of  fortune,  with  the  history 
of  traffic  recording  five  instances  of  failure  to  one  of  suc- 
cess, it  is  a  very  common  remark  among  the  business  por- 
tion of  the  community  that  they  stake  nothing  upon  chance, 
that  they  run  no  risks,  that  they  look  before  they  leap ;  and 
yet  every  act  of  their  lives  is  a  flat  denial  of  the  truth  of 
their  pet  proposition.  Their  entire  life,  in  company  with 
that  of  common  humanity,  is  but  a  game  of  chance,  from 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  5  I 

the  opening  door  of  the  cradle  to  the  closing  portal  of  the 
grave.  Mystery  envelops  their  every  step,  and  their  very 
existence  is  shrouded  with  uncertainty.  The  thoughts  and 
intentions  of  man  are  known  only  to  himself  and  Omnipo- 
tence. No  human  agency  can  divine  their  character.  No 
human  law,  moreover,  can  either  compel  such  thoughts 
and  intentions  to  be  honest  and  upright,  or  devise  means 
whereby  dishonest  thought  and  purpose  can  be  invariably 
detected  by  outward  act.  It  is  mere  faith  in  the  purity  and 
probity  of  such  thought  and  purpose  that  constitutes  the 
corner-stone  of  commerce,  society  and  every  human  insti- 
tution whatsoever.  Discard  this  element  of  trust  in  man 
for  man,  and  you  sap  the  foundations  of  society,  block  the 
wheels  of  business,  stay  the  progress  of  civilization,  strike 
at  the  very  roots  of  Christianity,  and  by  thus  forgetting 
that  man  was  made  "in  His  own  image,"  utter  a  libel 
upon  the  Bible  and  offer  insult  to  God. 

This  element  of  trust  is  peculiarly  apparent  in  the  use  of 
a  convertible  paper  currency.  Such  a  currency  meets  with 
public  approbation  and  acceptance  in  almost  unlimited 
amounts,  simply  because  the  community  puts  faith  in  the 
ability  of  the  issuing  party  to  meet  the  obligation  expressed 
upon  the  issue,  and  that  such  ability  is  supplemented  by 
honest  intent. 

This  characteristic  of  business  faith  and  trust  is  forcibly 
illustrated  in  the  dealings  of  the  New  York  city  banks 
with  the  brokers  of  Wall  street ;  and  to  the  credit  of  the 
latter  be  it  said,  notwithstanding  they  are  generally  accused 
of  an  opposite  course,  there  is  no  class  of  people  in  the 
United  States  who  live  in  their  business  so  exclusively  "  upon 
honor"  as  they.  Their  honesty  is  measured  by  the  banks 
with  whom  they  deal  within  the  limits  of  from  one  to  a 
million  of  dollars.  Instances  of  a  Wall-street  broker  wish- 
ing to  buy  stock  to  fill  an  order  to  the  extent  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  more  than  his  bank  balance,  and  of  his 


52  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

bank  honoring  his  check  for  the  amount  upon  the  mere 
belief  that  he  will  buy  and  sell  his  stock  and  make  good  his 
balance,  are  of  every-day  occurrence. 

The  basis,  then,  of  a  convertible  currency,  speaking  in 
the  abstract  merely,  is  credit,  faith,  trust.  This  is  its 
general,  moral,  organic,  and  not  its  conventional,  material 
basis.  Discussion  of  the  latter  point  belongs  more  appro- 
priately to  our  chapter  upon  Banking,  and  will  there  en- 
gage attention. 

(£)  The  theory  and  utility  of  a  convertible  currency  is 
demonstrated  in  the  combined  argument  of  convenience  and 
economy.  The  nineteenth  century  is  characterized  by  a 
people  who  husband  the  resources  of  labor,  and  this  trait 
of  character  finds  emphatic  expression  in  the  fact  of  a  con- 
vertible currency.  It  is  far  less  bulky  than  specie,  much 
easier  of  manipulation,  and,  if  destroyed  by  fire  or  other 
calamity,  results  in  no  loss  save  that  of  temporary  conveni- 
ence. It  has  no  intrinsic  worth.  It  is  merely  the  repre- 
sentative of  such  intrinsic  value — a  simple  certificate  that 
the  holder  is  entitled  to  the  sum  of  money  stamped  upon 
its  face — and  upon  proof  of  destruction  the  issuing  party 
will  always  furnish  the  loser  with  a  duplicate.  So  long  as 
it  is  convertible  in  specie,  a  paper  currency  is  one  of  the 
happiest  inventions  and  most  efficient  instruments  of  com- 
merce. This  is  the  argument  of  convenience.  The  argu- 
ment of  economy  is  twofold — one  of  small,  the  other  of 
immense  importance.  The  loss  sustained  from  use  in  the 
wear  of  paper  Money  is  very  inconsiderable,  while  that  re- 
sulting from  the  abrasion  of  gold  and  silver  is  quite  the  re- 
verse. But  the  great  argument  of  economy  is  the  use  of 
the  surplus  specie,  resulting  from  the  adoption  of  converti- 
ble currency,  which  accrues  to  a  nation  for  foreign  pur- 
poses and  use.  A  convertible  paper  currency  will  only  cir- 
culate within  the  territory  of  the  government  where  it  is  is- 
sued. All  foreign  remittances  must  be  made  in  specie,  and 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  53 

the  sum  equal  to  the  difference  between  the  amount  of  spe- 
cie necessary  for  the  banks  of  issue  of  a  country  to  keep  as 
a  reserve  for  the  conversion  of  their  currency,  and  the 
gross  amount  of  the  circulating  medium,  represents  the 
amount  of  surplus  specie  which  the  adoption  of  a  converti- 
ble currency  puts  into  the  hands  of  a  government  and  a 
people  for  foreign  commerce. 

(c]  The  characteristics  of  a  convertible  currency.  As 
has  been  already  remarked,  it  has  no  intrinsic,  material 
worth  or  character.  It  consists  in  mere  stamped  or  en- 
graved pieces  of  paper,  promising  to  pay  a  certain  sum  of 
money  to  any  bearer  on  presentation,  and  that  uncondi- 
tionally and  at  all  events.  It  differs  from  a  promissory  note 
or  bill  of  exchange  payable  on  demand  in  that  it  is  pay- 
able to  any  holder,  and  in  transfer  from  man  to  man  does 
not  require  indorsement. 

(//)  The  proper  amount  of  a  convertible  issue.  This 
point  is  self-evident  and  apparent.  As  convertible  cur- 
rency is  instituted  to  supplant  a  metallic  circulating  me- 
dium, the  quantity  of  specie  in  circulation  prior  to  its  adop- 
tion is  the  proper  measure  of  a  convertible  issue.  History 
furnishes  striking  instances  of  the  violation  of  this  plain 
and  simple  principle  in  the  scheme  for  promoting  the  busi- 
ness interests  of  Scotland  by  the  establishment  of  the  Bank 
of  Ayr,  and  in  the  financial  panics  in  this  country  of  1837 
and  1857.  A  full  statement  of  these  illustrative  truths, 
however,  finds  a  more  appropriate  and  logical  place  under 
the  second  main  division  of  this  subject — Paper  Money  or 
Inconvertible  Currency — and  their  full  citation  is  conse- 
quently deferred  till  that  subject  shall  engage  attention. 

(e)  The  action  upon  commerce  of  an  excessive  issue  of 
convertible  currency  occasions  distrust  in  the  business 
community,  which  is  followed  by  a  run  upon  the  source  of 
issue  for  a  conversion  of  the  same  in  specie,  a  consequent 
hoarding  and  exportation  of  the  latter,  inevitable  suspen- 


54  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

sion  of  specie  payment  by  the  source  of  issue,  and  finally 
the  incomparable  evils  of  an  era  of  paper  Money — of  in- 
convertible currency — and  financial  disaster.  As  the  evil 
results  of  such  an  over-issue  are  not  seen,  experienced  or 
appreciated  until  the  point  is  reached,  by  suspension  of 
payment,  where  convertible  currency  assumes  the  form  of 
paper  Money,  full  discussion  of  these  evils  will  be  post- 
poned to  its  appropriate  place  under  that  subject. 

2.  Inconvertible  currency  or  paper  Money.  An  ex- 
amination of  the  subject  of  paper  Money  involves  allusion 
to  the  following  subordinate  topics :  (#)  The  cause  of 
paper  Money ;  (b}  its  theory ;  (c)  its  characteristics ;  (</) 
the  proper  amount  of  such  an  issue ;  (<?)  an  excessive  issue 
of  the  same,  and  its  consequences. 

(a)  History  traces  the  parentage  of  paper  Money  to  war 
or  commercial  disorder.  In  fact,  paper  Money  always 
indicates  change — it  means  revolution.  Not  to  mention 
earlier  instances,  the  American  colonies  inaugurated  the 
system  of  paper  Money  in  this  country,  upon  the  breaking 
out  of  the  first  intercolonial  war  in  1690,  by  a  paper  issue 
(they  were  novices  in  the  art)  of  $130,000;  but  when,  in 
1775,  the  battle  of  Lexington  ushered  in  the  War  of  the  Rev- 
olution, the  Continental  Congress,  by  almost  its  first  legis- 
lative act  thereafter,  directed  a  paper  issue  of  $3,000,000 ; 
and  so  easy  and  pleasant  was  this  new  way  of  coining 
Money  that  its  authors  seemed  to  have  adopted  the  meas- 
ure as  a  pastime,  and  upon  every  occasion  of  the  receipt  of 
intelligence  of  defeat  of  the  national  arms  to  have  resorted 
to  this  diversion  of  Money-making  as  a  means  of  public 
condolence,  for  in  the  year  1780  $200,000,000  of  paper 
Money  were  in  circulation,  not  a  dollar  of  which  was  ever 
redeemed  by  the  Government.  Within  the  same  interval 
the  French  Revolution  had  papered  every  avenue  of  the  com- 
merce of  France  with  assignats,  and  crimsoned  her  fields 
with  blood.  From  1 789  to  1817,  moreover,  when  Napoleon 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  55 

was  taxing  the  resources  of  Great  Britain  and  Continental 
Europe  to  their  utmost  to  thwart  his  schemes  of  self-aggran- 
dizement, paper  Money  constituted  the  entire  currency  of 
the  English  realm ;  and  the  late  civil  war  in  the  United 
States  has  bequeathed  to  its  inhabitants  what  has  thus 
far  proved  not  only  an  irrepressible  but  an  irredeem- 
able legacy  of  paper  Money  to  the  amount  of  nearly 
£800,000,000. 

(b)  The  theory  of  paper  Money,  inconvertible  currency, 
is  entirely  different  from  that  of  a  convertible  character. 
The  error  is  so  common  of  bringing  both  of  these  kinds  of 
currency  under  the  opprobrious  epithet  of  paper  Money 
that  the  distinction  should  be  carefully  taken.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  the  theory  of  convertible  currency  is  sound, 
tenable  and  wholesome.  It  is  issued  as  a  means  of  con- 
venience and  economy.  It  makes  a  circulating  medium  of 
the  utmost  portability,  and  one  which  prevents  waste  of 
the  precious  metals  from  friction.  It  releases  these  metals 
from  their  office  of  a  home-circulating  medium  for  purposes 
of  foreign  commerce,  and  by  reason  of  its  convertibility  at 
any  time  in  specie  is,  comparatively  speaking,  always  at  a 
par  valuation  with  the  same,  and  is  thus  an  adequate  means 
for  the  accomplishment  of  great  commercial  ends.  With 
paper  Money,  inconvertible  currency,  it  is  not  so.  It  is 
not  issued  either  for  convenience  or  economy,  but  is  a 
measure  of  blank,  dire  necessity.  Convertible  currency  is 
issued  to  take  the  place  of  a  specie  circulation,  with  specie 
as  a  material,  convertible  basis.  Inconvertible  currency, 
paper  Money,  is  issued  to  take  the  place  of  a  specie  circula- 
tion, with  no  material  basis  whatever.  The  first  can  always 
summon  the  precious  metals  to  its  aid — ay,  to  its  entire  and 
honorable  discharge  from  its  office  of  a  circulating  medium. 
Gold  and  silver  are  massed  upon  its  flanks  as  a  reserve 
force,  and  at  the  first  note  of  alarm,  at  the  first  onslaught 
of  distrust  upon  their  paper  compeer  in  the  service  of 


56  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

commerce,  they  fly  to  the  rescue  and  roll  back  the 
approaching  tide  of  financial  disaster.  Not  so  with 
paper  Money,  with  inconvertible  currency.  It  can  make 
no  draft  upon  the  precious  metals  which  the  latter  will 
honor,  it  has  no  relief  corps  upon  which  it  can  call  for 
succor,  and  no  power  behind  it  to  answer  the  crimination 
of  the  commercial  world.  It  is  no  charge-d 'affaires  for 
the  temporary  performance  of  the  duties  of  a  metallic  cur- 
rency. It  owes  allegiance  to  a  different  and  a  usurping 
power.  It  is  an  attendant  upon  war,  in  whose  service 
metallic  Money  ever  refuses  to  enlist.  The  origin  of  its 
existence  is  traced  directly  to  this  ruthless  disturber  of 
public  concord.  War  creates  distrust;  distrust  brings  com- 
mercial disorder;  this  in  turn  is  followed  by  a  hoarding  of 
the  precious  metals,  which  of  course  contracts  the  circulat- 
ing medium,  and  gold  and  silver  having  resigned  their 
office,  paper  Money  assumes  the  discarded  crown. 

The  theory  of  paper  Money,  then,  is  the  entire  creation, 
ab  initio,  of  a  new  circulating  medium.  It  is  not  a  tem- 
porary substitute  of  gold  and  silver  for  purposes  of  economy 
and  convenience.  It  is  an  indefinite  substitute  for  an  un- 
certain period,  induced  by  necessity  and  absolute  want. 

(V)  The  characteristics  of  paper  Money.  For  a  proper 
definition  of  paper  Money  it  is  simply  necessary  to  say 
that  it  consists  of  engraved  or  stamped  pieces  of  paper 
issued  and  made  a  legal  tender  by  governmental  authority, 
promising  to  pay  a  certain  sum  of  Money  at  some  fixed  or 
indefinite  future  period.  It  differs  from  a  promissory  note 
or  bill  of  exchange  in  that  the  date  of  its  maturity  is 
sometimes  indefinitely  postponed,  and  also  that  it  is  always 
payable  to  bearer  and  transferable  from  hand  to  hand 
without  indorsement.  It  is,  as  already  seen,  entirely  in- 
convertible in  specie,  bears  no  relation  to  it  whatever,  and, 
from  the  fact  of  being  made'  a  legal  tender  for  the  pay- 
ment of  debts  and  purposes  of  exchange  by  authority 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  $? 

of  law,  its  circulation  is  absolutely  compulsory.  This 
sanction  of  the 'government  is  all  that  gives  it  any  value 
whatever,  and  the  amount  of  value  it  possesses  is  deter- 
mined, not  by  the  ability  of  government  to  pay,  but 
by  the  relative  quantity  in  circulation  in  comparison  to 
that  of  commodities.  This  statement  may,  at  first  glance, 
seem  abortive  of  the  truth,  but  a  little  reflection  will  render 
its  accuracy  apparent.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  paper 
Money,  unlike  metallic  Money  or  convertible  currency, 
has  no  intrinsic;  material,  or  convertible  value,  and  yet, 
for  the  time  being,  it  is  the  measure  of  value  of  all  com- 
modities, gold  and  silver  having  been  entirely  withdrawn  ; 
and  hence  the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess  applies,  in  this 
connection,  with  unmitigated  rigor  ;  that  is,  if  an  excess  of 
it  is  put  into  circulation  above  what  is  needed  to  effect  the 
regular  and  necessary  exchanges  of  commodities,  the  equi- 
librium between  the  two  is  destroyed,  and  the  value  of 
commodities  is  enhanced,  while  that  of  paper  Money  is 
diminished  by  reason  of  this  excess — by  reason,  so  to 
speak,  of  its  adulteration.  There  is,  moreover,  no  limit  to 
the  amount  of  its  possible  issue,  and  hence  its  value  for 
any  future  period  is  entirely  indeterminate,  and  conse- 
quently, it  is  not  only  unstable  in  itself,  but  communicates 
this  element  of  instability  to  all  industrial  and  commercial 
pursuits.  This  characteristic  of  paper  Money  constitutes 
its  greatest  evil.  If  community  knew  a  point  beyond 
which  its  issue  would  not  be  allowed,  calculation  could  be 
made  as  to  its  prospective  value,  and  so  commerce  could 
run  on  in  its  accustomed  channel,  but  the  probability  that 
Government  will  authorize  additional  issues  envelops  all 
business  pursuits,  except  those  of  the  immediate  present, 
with  uncertainty.  The  value  of  commodities  for  the  future 
cannot  be  estimated,  for  their  value  is  to  be  governed  by 
the  quantity  of  paper  Money  which  will  be  in  circulation, 
which  is  indeterminable,  and  hence  the  establishment  of  a 

02 


58  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

cash  basis  in  all  sales  and  contracts.  In  other  words,  all 
contracts  are  executed,  and  not  executory,  in  an  era  of 
paper  Money.  Paper  Money,  indeed,  when  once  adopted 
during  seasons  of  public  disturbance,  is  almost  invariably 
unduly  extended,  for  the  first  issue  operates  to  enhance 
prices  of  commodities,  by  reason  of  its  non-convertible 
and  non-material  character;  traffic  is  thus,  by  the  impetus 
of  a  rising  market,  unwarrantably  increased  ;  more  Money 
is  demanded  to  satisfy  its  unhealthy  cravings ;  a  second 
issue  follows,  the  same  history  repeats  itself,  and  so  on  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter,  till  contraction  begins  and  reverses 
the  workings  of  the  entire  commercial  and  industrial  com- 
munity. The  further  expression  of  this  line  of  thought 
more  appropriately  belongs  to  the  topic  of  The  Effect  of 
Excessive  Issues  of  Paper  Money,  and  it  will  consequently 
be  pursued  no  farther  in  this  connection. 

(</)  The  proper  amount  of  a  paper  Money  issue  is  mea- 
sured by  the  limits  of  the  circulating  medium  which  pre- 
ceded it.  The  fact  that  its  non-convertibility  will  enhance 
the  price  of  commodities,  even  though  its  limit,  in  the  first 
instance,  only  equals  that  of  the  circulation  which  preceded 
it,  furnishes  no  excuse  why  its  issue  should  exceed  that  of 
such  prior  circulating  medium  in  an  amount  proportionate 
to  this  enhancement  in  the  price  of  commodities.  The 
use  of  paper  Money,  at  best,  is  an  evil,  and  every  issue  in 
excess  of  the  amount  above  designated  only  opens  the  door 
for  additional  issues,  and  consequently  augments  the  evil 
instead  of  affording  relief.  The  truth  of  this  proposition 
has  been  shown  in  the  prior,  and  will  continue  to  appear 
in  the  future,  discussion  of  this  subject. 

(i)  As  already  indicated,  an  excessive  issue  of  paper 
Money  usually  follows  its  adoption  as  a  circulating  medium. 
By  an  excessive  issue  is  meant  an  increase  of  a  paper 
Money  circulation  above  that  of  the  specie  one  which  pre- 
ceded it.  Although  the  immediate  effect  upon  commerce 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  59 

of  such  excessive  issues  of  paper  Money  is  seemingly  to 
spur  it  to  greater  activity,  the  final  result  of  its  adoption  as 
a  circulating  medium  is  attended  with  almost  innumerable 
and  irreparable  injuries  to  both  commercial  and  industrial 
pursuits.  These  seeming  evidences  of  general  prosperity 
which  accompany  the  induction  of  an  extended  paper 
Money  currency  owe  their  brief  existence  to  the  fact  that 
paper  Money  has  no  intrinsic,  material  value.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  commerce  stands  in  no  danger  from  an 
excess  of  metallic  currency  ;  nay  more,  that  such  excess 
will  never  be  extended  over  only  a  very  brief  period ;  and 
the  cause  of  both  of  these  conditions  of  things  is,  that 
metallic  Money  has  an  intrinsic,  material,  commercial 
value,  that  such  value  is  always  determinate,  and  when,  by 
reason  of  its  excess,  it  cannot  realize  this  determinate  value 
in  the  office  of  a  circulating  medium — which  value  is  the 
cost  of  the  labor  that  produced  it — it  leaves  this  particular 
occupation  and  finds  other  employment  in  the  service  of 
science,  fashion  and  art.  The  deduction  from  the  fore- 
going truth  is,  that  an  excess  of  metallic  Money,  on  account 
of  its  intrinsic  worth,  has  no  permanent  effect  upon  the 
prices  of  commodities.  The  law  that  labor  seeks  such  pur- 
suits as  offer  the  greatest  recompense  here  governs  the  entire 
matter.  Not  so  with  paper  Money.  Even  if  the  first  issue 
of  such  a  currency  only  equals  in  amount  that  of  the  specie 
circulation  which  preceded  it,  it  will  not,  by  reason  of  its 
inconvertibility  into  gold  and  silver,  and  its  non-intrinsic 
character,  maintain  an  equilibrium  with  the  precious 
metals.  As  compared  with  them,  it  will,  without  any 
increase  of  volume  above  that  of  the  circulation  that  pre- 
ceded it,  stand  at  a  discount,  and  thus  the  standard  measure 
of  value  of  commodities  is  changed  and  prices  of  the 
same  are  consequently  enhanced.  This  enhancement  of 
prices  increases  the  demand  for  goods  ;  traffic  is  unwarrant- 
ably stimulated  from  speculative  motives :  prices  continue 


60  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  advance ;  more  Money  is  represented  as  necessary  for  busi- 
ness purposes ;  the  requisition  is  responded  to  by  repeated 
issues,  and  each  issue,  paradox  though  it  may  seem,  raises 
the  price  of,  and  increases  the  demand  for,  commodities, 
and  lowers  the  price  of,  and  increases  the  demand  for, 
Money.  The  law  that  labor  seeks  that  employment  which 
offers  the  greatest  recompense  has  no  control  here  what- 
ever. Paper  Money,  intrinsically  speaking,  -costs  nothing, 
will  sell  for  nothing ;  but  since,  for  the  time  being,  it  is  the 
principal  measure  of  value,  the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess 
holds  exclusive  sway  over  its  various  relations  to  commerce. 

This  apparent  prosperity  which  an  era  of  paper  Money 
produces  inspires  a  people  with  false  hope,  and  until  reac- 
tion sets  in  gives  great  popularity  to  the  government  of 
such  particular  periods. 

When  "  The  Relations  of  Money  to  Commerce  "  formed 
the  subject  of  examination,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the 
proposition  was  laid  down  that  "one  of  the  characteristics 
demanded  of  Money  for  commercial  purposes  is,  that  it 
shall  be  extended  only  so  far  as  will  enable  it  to  measure 
the  value  of  commodities  upon  the  same  relative  basis  as 
that  by  which  such  value  is  measured  in  foreign  countries, 
provided  the  measure  of  value  in  foreign  countries  is  the 
natural  metallic,  and  not  a  local  one."  As  this  law  is  ap- 
plicable only  to  a  paper  Money  circulation,  the  examination 
of  the  same  was  postponed  till  the  discussion  of  the  last- 
named  topic.  The  proposition  will  now  receive  attention. 
If  stated  affirmatively,  it  amounts  to  this :  A  redundant 
paper  Money  currency  fails  to  measure  the  value  of  commod- 
ities upon  the  same  relative  basis  as  that  upon  which  such 
value  is  measured  in  foreign  countries,  where  the  measure 
of  value  is  a  metallic  one,  and  consequently  works  injustice. 
Indeed,  the  principal  evil  of  paper  Money— one  that  over- 
shadows all  others — is  found  in  this  connection.  The  law 
will  consequently  receive  a  careful  illustration. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  6 1 

Let  it  be  supposed  that  the  States  of  Massachusetts  and 
Illinois  are  separate  and  independent  nationalities.  Let 
the  further  supposition  be  made  that  the  circulating  medium 
of  Massachusetts  is  specie,  while  that  of  Illinois  is  paper 
Money,  and  of  double  the  volume  necessary  to  effect  the 
proper  exchanges  of  commodities.  Now,  Massachusetts, 
in  a  comparative  sense,  is  strictly  a  manufacturing  and 
mercantile  State,  while  Illinois  is  both  a  manufacturing 
and  mercantile,  and  also  largely  an  agricultural  State.  It 
is  moreover  seen  that  Illinois  is  the  State,  by  the  supposi- 
tion, which  has  an  unhealthy,  excessive  local  circulating 
medium.  As  Illinois,  also,  is  largely  an  agricultural,  and 
Massachusetts  a  commercial  State,  a  moment's  reflection 
will  make  the  fact  apparent  that  the  former  must  find  in  the 
latter,  by  the  hypothesis,  a  market  for  the  greater  portion 
of  her  agricultural  products ;  yet  a  portion  of  these  products 
will  be  sold  in  her  own,  and  a  portion  in  the  Massachu- 
setts market.  Now,  what  is  the  governing  power  that  will 
fix  the  price  of  the  agricultural  products  which  Illinois  sells 
in  her  own  markets  ?  Clearly,  the  price  which  will  attach 
to  these  products  for  the  purpose  of  shipment  to  Massachu- 
setts. This  is  an  undeviating  law  of  commerce ;  that  is, 
that  when  the  greater  portion  of  the  particular  products  of 
a  country  find  a  market  abroad,  the  price  of  the  small  portion 
sold  for  purposes  of  home  consumption  will  be  governed  by 
the  price  for  shipment,  for  the  home  purchaser  is  master  of 
the  situation  ;  his  position  is,  "  Sell  me  what  corn  I  need  for 
one  dollar  per  bushel,  or  send  it  abroad  ;  that  is  as  much 
as  you  can  get  in  the  foreign  market."  In  other  words, 
the  price  where  the  major  portion  of  a  product  or  manu- 
facture finds  a  market  fixes  the  price  for  the  residue.  Re- 
turning to  the  illustration,  the  price  which  Illinois  will 
obtain  for  produce  sold  in  her  own  market  will  be  measured 
by  the  specie  standard  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  premium 
on  specie  in  Illinois  will  not  have  increased  by  more  than 


62  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

one-fourth  the  relative  ratio  with  which  the  value  of  her 
own  currency  has  depreciated.  Now,  her  own  paper 
Money,  by  the  hypothesis,  is  double  its  necessary  volume ; 
so  that,  by  the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess,  which  alone  ap- 
plies in  an  era  of  paper  Money,  as  already  seen,  the  price 
of  articles  which  find  an  exclusive  market  within  her  terri- 
tory is  increased  by  about  the  same  ratio  as  her  currency  is 
depreciated.  In  this  state  of  things  the  farmers  of  Illinois 
sell  their  produce  by  a  measure  of  valuation  thirty-seven  and 
a  half  per  cent,  less  than  the  one  which  affixes  the  price  to 
articles  sold  exclusively  in  her  territory,  and  of  which  they 
are  daily  purchasers.  That  is,  with  specie  at  a  premium  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  the  Illinois  farmer  sells  a  bushel  of 
corn  for  $i  in  gold,  or  $1.25  in  currency,  and  pays  $2  for  an 
article  sold  exclusively  in  the  Illinois  market  (the  Illinois 
paper  currency  being  double  its  necessary  volume),  which 
cost  the  owner  no  more  than  the  bushel  of  corn  did  the  farmer. 
The  only  assumption  in  the  foregoing  illustration  which 
has  not  been  proved  is,  that  with  the  currency  of  Illinois 
depreciated  100  per  cent.,  the  premium  on  specie  will  not 
have  advanced  more  than  25  per  cent.  Commercial  his- 
tory proves  that  the  premium  on  specie  will  never  advance 
in  a  relative  ratio  with  the  decline  in  the  value  of  redun- 
dant paper  Money.  It  will  not  for  the  following  reason  : 
Specie  and  paper  Money,  so  to  speak,  are  in  the  market 
for  sale.  The  price  of  the  latter,  having  no  intrinsic  value, 
will  be  governed  entirely  by  the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess, 
and  will  sell  for  commodities  upon  the  basis  of  an  excessive 
or  diminutive  supply,  but  the  former  having  an  intrinsic 
value,  its  price,  as  a  circulating  medium,  is  governed,  not 
alone  by  the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess,  but  also  by  what 
it  is  worth  as  a  commodity  of  commerce.  Its  value  for 
the  purposes  of  commerce,  which  is  the  cost  of  the  labor 
that  produced  it,  operates  as  a  check,  to  a  certain  extent, 
against  the  increase  of  its  value  as  a  circulating  medium 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  63 

over  that  of  a  redundant  currency.  That  this  comparative 
increase — namely,  25  per  cent,  by  the  hypothesis — is  a  fair, 
and  more  than  a  fair  allowance,  take  the  present  state  of 
things  in  this  respect  in  the  United  States  for  an  example. 
The  paper  currency  in  this  country  at  the  present  time 
(1871)  is  very  nearly  50  per  cent,  above  its  necessary  vol- 
ume. This  statement  must  be  here  taken  upon  trust. 
Proof  of  this  assertion  may  be  found  in  the  next  succeed- 
ing chapter.  The  average  redundancy  for  the  last  eight 
years  will  considerably  exceed  this  estimate.  This  redun- 
dancy of  currency  for  the  last  five  years  has  enhanced 
prices  of  commodities  sold  exclusively  in  this  market  from 
40  to  100  per  cent.,  yet  the  average  premium  on  gold 
within  this  period  has  not  exceeded  15  per  cent. 

A  Free-Trader  will  argue  in  this  connection,  "Let  the 
Illinois  farmer  buy  all  his  supplies  abroad,  where  he  sells 
his  produce,  and  where  the  measure  of  value  is  the  same  as 
that  which  he  sells  by,  and  if  there  is  no  tariff  he  suffers 
no  injustice."  This  argument  will  be  examined  in  its 
proper  connection  farther  on. 

The  peculiar  condition  of  things  resulting  from  the  vio- 
lation of  the  proposition  just  illustrated  may  militate 
against  the  interests  of  other  classes  of  people  besides  the 
agriculturists ;  they  were  merely  employed  in  the  foregoing 
illustration  as  the  most  convenient  subjects,  by  the  hy- 
pothesis, to  prove  the  truth  of  the  general  law. 

The  evils  arising  from  the  excessive  issue  of  paper  Money 
bear  with  particular  hardship  upon  the  laboring  classes, 
salaried  men  and  all  parties  living  upon  fixed  incomes, 
such  as  accrue  from  investments  made  prior  to  the  era  of 
paper  Money.  The  wages  and  salaries  of  the  first  two 
never  increase  with  the  same  relative  rapidity  with  which 
prices  of  commodities  advance,  and  the  income  of  the 
latter  is  measured  either  by  the  premium  on  gold,  which,  as 
already  seen,  does  not  advance  in  a  ratio  equal  to  the  de- 


64  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

cline  in  value  of  paper  Money,  or,  and  very  frequently  by 
the  value  of  the  redundant  currency  at  the  time  of  payment. 

The  final  evil  of  an  excessive  issue  of  paper  Money  is 
seen  in  the  unavoidable  commercial  disturbances  usually 
attendant  upon  a  return  to  specie  payments.  This  return 
is  to  be  effected  only  by  an  assimulation  of  the  value  of  the 
redundant  currency  to  that  of  gold  and  silver,  and  this 
equalization  of  value  can  be  established  only  by  a  contrac- 
tion of  the  paper  Money  circulation.  Such  contraction — 
the  law  of  scarcity  and  excess  still  applying — depreciates 
the  value  of  commodities  and  enhances  the  worth  of  the 
paper  currency,  so  that  holders  of  merchandise,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  obligors  on  deferred  contracts  on  the  other, 
together  with  the  entire  debtor  class  of  community,  are 
subjected  to  loss,  disadvantage,  and,  in  many  cases,  com- 
plete and  inevitable  ruin.  Each  individual  failure  fur- 
nishes both  cause  and  pretext  for  others,  till  at  last  the  entire 
community,  if  such  contraction  is  unduly  hastened,  is  en- 
veloped in  financial  disaster.  Distrust  everywhere  sup- 
plants the  ill-founded  hope  which  attended  the  inauguration 
of  the  excessive  issues  of  a  paper  currency,  and  the  ruling 
power  itself  is  often  compelled  to  lay  down  its  sceptre  to 
appease  the  clamor  of  an  indignant  and  revolutionary 
public. 

Citations  from  history,  giving  painful  evidence  of  the 
extent  and  magnitude  of  these  evils  of  a  redundant  paper 
currency,  are  to  be  had  both  in  ancient  and  modern  annals. 
The  Bank  of  Ayr  scheme  for  advancing  the  business  inter- 
ests of  Scotland  was  based  upon  the  idea  of  supplying  the 
commercial  world  with  currency  to  any  limit  within  the 
value  of  all  commodities  offered  in  exchange.  The  result 
was  inevitable.  The  commercial  marts  of  Scotland  were 
in  the  end  paralyzed  with  stagnation;  the  country  was 
buried  in  financial  disaster ;  and  the  colossal  banking- 
house  above  named  perished  amid  the  general  ruin. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY.  65 

The  financial  panic  in  this  country  of  1837  had  its  origin 
in  this  same  evil  of  a  redundant  currency.  The  surplus  coin 
in  the  United  States  Treasury,  resulting  from  the  collection 
of  imports  and  the  sale  of  public  lands,  had  reached  the 
sum  of  $28,000,000.  A  measure  of  Henry  Clay  to  dis- 
tribute this  surplus  among  the  States  had  failed  in  the  pre- 
ceding session  of  Congress,  but  in  the  winter  of  1836  a  bill 
was  passed  providing  for  the  "deposit"  of  this  sum  with 
the  several  States,  on  the  basis  of  the  representative  popula- 
tion, subject  to  the  call  of  the  General  Government.  The 
charter  of  the  United  States  Bank,  moreover,  expired 
shortly  after,  and  as  a  substitute  for  this  financial  institu- 
tion, which  had  a  capital  of  $35,000,000,  State  banks  were 
established  with  a  circulating  issue  of  fully  four  times  the 
extent  of  that  of  the  preceding  year,  for  not  only  was  the 
void  occasioned  by  the  closing  of  the  National  Bank  filled, 
and  more  than  filled,  but  in  addition  to  this  banking  institu- 
tions were  established  throughout  the  entire  country,  with 
the  £28,000,000  "deposited"  with  the  States  as  a  basis 
and  specie  reserve.  The  result  constitutes  a  record  of 
history  familiar  to  every  reader  of  our  political  annals,  and 
gives  indubitable  proof  of  the  evils  of  a  redundant  paper 
currency. 

The  commercial  convulsion  in  the  United  States  of  1857 
can  be  traced  to  somewhat  similar  causes.  The  opening 
of  the  California  gold-mines  nearly  ten  years  prior  to  that 
date  resulted  in  a  great  increase  of  banking  facilities.  The 
consequent  redundant  circulation  enhanced  the  price  of 
commodities ;  speculation  was  consequently  induced  j  the 
mercantile  world  bought  beyond  their  means,  and  in  1857, 
when  these  banking  facilities  were  curtailed  by  reason  of  a 
diminution  in  the  supply  of  California  gold,  prices  fell,  the 
markets  were  stagnant,  sales  were  impossible,  obligations 
matured,  and  a  general  suspension  followed. 

The  discussion  of  Money  and  Currency  in  the  abstract  is 


66  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

here  concluded,  and  the  following  chapter  will  be  devoted 
to  an  examination  of  the  present  condition  of  the  Money 
and  Currency  of  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  MONEY  AND    CURRENCY  OF  THE    UNITED 
STATES. 

The  Subject  Classified — History  of  our  Present  Circulating  Medium — 
The  Character  of  our  Circulation  Prior  to  the  Rebellion — The  Status 
of  Business  at  its  Outbreak — The  Legal-Tender  Notes — Issues  of — 
Effect  of  the  same  upon  Business — The  Three-per-cent.  Certificates 
— More  Bank  Currency  demanded  —  "  Equalization  "  of  the  same 
attempted — Gold  Banks — Statement  of  Money  in  Circulation  at  the 
Close  of  the  Year  1871 — Criticism  of  the  Legal-Tenders — Action  of 
.  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  reference  to — Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  no  Authority  to  make  Further  Issues  of — What  they  Cost 
— Amount  of  Circulating  Medium  needed  in  the  United  States  at 
the  Present  Time  —  The  Present  Volume  of  Circulation  Fifty  per 
cent,  in  excess — Evils  of  the  Present  Paper  Circulation — They  con- 
stitute a  Narrative  of  Indescribable  Suffering — The  Fraud  connected 
with  Mutilated  Currency — These  Evils  bear  mostly  upon  the  Laboring, 
Salaried  and  Agricultural  Classes — Resumption  of  Specie  Payments 
— How  to  be  Effected  —  Senator  Sumner's  Plan  Criticised — Com- 
pound-interest Notes  not  Wanted — The  Retirement  of  our  Legal- 
Tenders  the  Proper  Means  of  Resumption. 

r  I  "HE  opening  remarks  of  the  preceding  chapter  traced 
_L  the  causes  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  a  circu- 
lating medium  for  the  purpose  of  exchanging  commodities 
and  measuring  their  value,  and  of  the  universal  adoption 
of  Money  as  an  agent  for  the  performance  of  these  deli- 
cate and  important  functions.  The  line  of  discussion  then 
assumed  for  the  treatment  of  the  subject  by  which  that 
chapter  is  entitled  consisted  in  an  examination  of  the  theo- 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF   THE    U.  S.  6? 

retical  elements  and  practical  uses  of  Money.  This  exami- 
nation was  initiated  by  a  subdivision  of  the  same  into  the 
following-named  topics :  the  requisites  of  Money  ;  what  is 
Money  ?  the  offices  of  Money ;  the  relations  of  Money  to 
commerce,  and  the  kinds  and  substitutes  of  Money.  These 
topics  in  their  various  ramifications  then  received  attention 
in  their  respective  order,  and  an  application  of  the  princi- 
ples which  were  deduced  from  that  discussion  will  now  be 
made  to  the  present  condition  of  the  Money  and  Currency 
of  the  United  States. 

The  circulating  medium  of  the  United  States  at  the  close 
of  the  present  year  (1871)  consists,  with  the  exception  of 
a  trifling  amount  of  nickel  and  copper  coin,  entirely  of  paper 
Money.  The  investigation  of  the  present  status  of  this 
paper  circulation  now  proposed,  and  the  results  flowing 
therefrom,  will  be  conducted  by  a  discussion  of  the  follow- 
ing topics — namely : 

I.  The  History  of  the  Present  Paper  Money  of  the 

United  States. 
II.  The  Legal-Tender  Notes. 

III.  The  Amount  of  Circulating  Medium  Needed  in  the 

United  States  at  the  Present  Time. 

IV.  Evils  of  the  Present  Paper  Circulation. 
V.  Resumption  of  Specie  Payments. 

I.  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  PRESENT  PAPER  MO^JEY  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES. 

Immediately  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  our  late  civil  war 
the  entire  banking  business  of  this  country  was  carried  on 
by  institutions  organized  and  operating  under  special  or 
general  incorporating  statutes  of  the  several  States  wherein 
such  institutions  were  located.  Each  of  these  State  banks, 
in  addition  to  the  exercise  of  the  functions  which  alone 
legitimately  belong  to  banking  institutions — namely,  those 


68  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  receiving  Money  on  deposit  and  discounting  commercial 
paper — issued  a  limited  amount  of  notes  convertible  in 
specie  at  their  respective  counters  or  at  some  general  bank 
of  redemption.  The  circulation  of  each  bank  bore  a  cer- 
tain proportion  to  the  amount  of  capital  invested,  and  each 
institution  was  required  by  its  charter  to  keep  a  given 
amount  of  specie  in  reserve  for  the  conversion  of  the 
same.  The  sum-total  of  these  State  bank-notes  in  circu- 
lation at  the  opening  of  the  year  1861  amounted  to 
$190,000,000.  The  amount  of  specie  held  in  reserve  for 
the  conversion  of  this  note  issue  was  about  $90,000,000. 
In  addition  to  the  $190,000,000  of  convertible  currency 
issued  by  the  State  banks,  there  was  also  in  circulation,  by 
the  nearest  possible  estimate,  about  $145,000,000  in  specie. 
It  is  thus  seen  that  the  entire  circulating  medium  of  the 
United  States  in  the  spring  of  1861  amounted  to  only 
about  $335,000,000.  Of  this  sum  it  has  been  predicated 
that  about  $275,000,000  were  in  circulation  through  the 
North,  or,  stating  it  more  exactly,  through  the  loyal  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  disloyal  section  of  the  country.  This 
estimate  is  only  an  approximate,  but  yet,  as  generally  con- 
ceded, very  nearly  a  correct  one. 

The  early  summer  of  1861,  owing  to  the  distrust  occa- 
sioned by  the  opening  of  hostilities,  was  a  season  of  general 
depression  of  business.  Trade  was  stagnant,  manufacturing 
pursuits  even  were  for  the  moment  paralyzed,  prices  de- 
clined, and  specie,  in  pursuance  of  its  traditional  antipa- 
thy for  the  service  of  a  people  engaged  in  war,  summarily 
divorced  itself  from  the  convertible  currency  to  which,  by 
a  long  peace,  it  had  been  wedded,  hastily  retired  from  the 
office  of  a  circulating  medium,  and  for  the  most  part  either 
sought  shelter  in  the  hands  of  the  Money-hoarders  that 
ever  accompany  the  progress  of  arms,  or  took  hasty  pas- 
sage beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  scene  of  conflict.  The 
immense  requisitions  of  the  Government  for  army  supplies 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  5.  69 

and  ammunition  soon,  however,  gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  the 
greater  portion  of  industrial  enterprises ;  prices  advanced 
by  reason  both  of  the  contraction  of  the  currency  caused 
by  the  retirement  of  specie  from  circulation,  and  also  on 
account  of  the  increasing  demand  for  commodities  induced 
by  governmental  orders ;  so  that  when  Congress  assembled  in 
December,  1861,  the  commercial  portion  of  community  were 
clamoring  for  loans  with  which  to  prosecute  their  rapidly- 
increasing  business.  In  the  absence  of  specie  to  protect 
their  notes,  the  State  banks  feared  to  respond  to  these  de- 
mands for  loans,  so  that  in  January,  1862,  Government  hav- 
ing taken  the  initiative,  these  institutions  followed  the  ex- 
ample, and  specie  payments  throughout  the  country  were 
suspended. 

By  the  retirement  of  specie  the  circulation  of  the  loyal 
section  of  the  country  was  at  least  diminished  by  the  sum 
of  $100,000,000,  and  the  demand  for  loans  just  referred  to 
was  reasonable  and  just,  even  if  there  had  been  no  increase 
in  the  value  of  commodities  in  commercial  circulation. 
The  State  bank-notes,  moreover,  were  clearly  illegal  after 
January,  1862,  for  they  were  no  longer  convertible  into 
specie,  as  required  by  the  charters  of  these  institutions. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  Congress,  on  the  25th  of  Febru- 
ary, 1862,  authorized  the  issue  of  $150,000,000  of  legal- 
tender  notes,  and  as  this  amount  of  paper  Money  only 
equaled,  or  at  most  was  but  a  very  little  in  excess  of,  the 
quantity  of  specie  which  had  been  retired  from  circulation, 
the  measure  provoked  little  or  no  criticism  from  the  major 
portion  of  the  community.  It  merely  supplied  the  demand 
of  the  business  community  for  loans  with  which  to  prose- 
cute their  various  and  rapidly-extending  enterprises. 

The  enormous  requisitions  of  the  Government  for  sup- 
plies and  military  equipments  soon  again  rendered  it  neces- 
sary for  Congress  to  devise  further  means  for  the  pay- 
ment of  its  obligations,  and  accordingly,  whether  wisely 


7O  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

or  not,  on  the  nth  of  July,  1862,  an  additional  issue  of 
$150,000,000  of  legal-tender  notes  was  authorized.  The 
$150,000,000  of  these  notes  issued  under  authority  of  the 
act  of  the  25th  of  February,  1862,  were  of  a  denomination 
not  less  than  five  dollars  each,  but  the  act  of  July  n,  1862, 
directed  that  at  least  one-third  of  the  $150,000,000  to  be 
issued  thereunder  should  be  of  a  denomination  less  than 
five  dollars,  but  no  part  of  the  same  should  consist  of 
notes  less  than  one  dollar. 

The  State  banks  were  still  in  operation,  and  this  last 
issue  of  $150,000,000  of  legal-tenders  so  inflated  the  cur- 
rency that  prices  of  all  commodities  rapidly  advanced,  and 
the  small  remnant  of  specie  that  had  not  prior  to  this  time 
disappeared  was  now  entirely  driven  out  of  circulation  by 
this  depreciated  currency.  The  country  was  thus  left  with- 
out any  circulating  medium  whatever  in  sums  less  than 
one  dollar.  Congress,  accordingly,  July  17,  1862,  in  the 
teeth  of  its  prohibition  to  that  effect  in  the  act  of  the  nth 
of  the  same  month,  authorized  an  issue  of  fractional  cur- 
rency, and  (not  to  recur  to  the  separate  issues  of  this  par- 
ticular species  of  currency  again)  additional  issues  of  the 
same  were  authorized  March  3,  1863,  and  June  30,  1864, 
all  of  which  have  amounted  by  present  returns  to  the 
aggregate  sum  of  $39,166,916.08.  This  additional  in- 
crease to  the  already  inflated  currency  of  the  country  ope- 
rated to  still  further  enhance  the  prices  of  commodities 
and  depreciate  the  value  of  the  paper  circulation.  The 
colossal  proportions  which  the  war  was  almost  daily 
assuming  moreover  created  a  constant  augmentation  of 
the  moneyed  necessities  of  the  Government,  and  accord- 
ingly, March  3,  1863,  Congress  authorized  a  further  issue 
of  $100,000,000  of  legal-tenders,  restricting  the  denomi- 
nation of  the  same  to  notes  of  not  less  than  one  dollar. 

The  act  of  July  n,  1862,  directing  an  issue  of 
$150,000,000  of  legal-tender  notes,  also  contained  the  fol- 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  ?l 

lowing  provision — namely:  "That  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  is  authorized  to  receive  deposits,  under  such  regu- 
lations as  he  may  prescribe,  to  such  amount  as  he  may 
deem  expedient,  not  exceeding  $100,000,000,  for  not  less 
than  thirty  days,  in  sums  not  less  than  $100,  at  a  rate  of 
interest  not  exceeding  five  per  centum  per  annum ;  and  any 
amount  so  deposited  may  be  withdrawn  from  deposit  at 
any  time  after  ten  days'  notice,  on  the  return  of  the  certifi- 
cate of  deposit.  And  of  the  amount  of  United  States 
notes  authorized  by  this  act,  not  less  than  550,000,000  shall 
be  reserved  for  the  purpose  of  securing  prompt  payment 
of  such  deposits  when  demanded,  and  shall  be  issued  and 
used  only  when  in  the  judgment  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  the  same  or  any  part  thereof  may  be  used  for  that 
purpose. ' ' 

About  $42,500,000  of  this  issue  of  legal-tenders  were 
appropriated  to  the  purpose  indicated  by  the  foregoing 
provision,  so  that  the  aggregate  amount  of  legal-tender 
notes  put  in  circulation  by  the  three  acts  hereinbefore  cited 
and  subsequent  revisory  ones  was  $357,500,000.  It  is  a 
mooted  question  whether  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  still 
has  a  discretion  to  issue  $50,000,000  more  of  these  notes 
under  the  act  of  July  n,  1862.  This  question  will  receive 
discussion  farther  on. 

The  same  causes  heretofore  cited — namely,  continued 
inflations  of  the  currency,  consequent  rise  in  prices  of  com- 
modities and  decline  in  value  of  the  circulating  medium, 
together  with  the  ever-increasing  needs  of  the  Government 
— resulted  in  the  authorization  by  Congress,  March  3,  1863, 
of  an  issue  of  compound-interest  notes,  of  a  denomination 
not  less  than  ten  dollars,  bearing  interest  at  five  per  cent, 
per  annum,  payable  every  six  months,  and  a  legal  tender 
for  their  face.  The  limit  of  the  proposed  issue  was 
$400,000,000.  $150,000,000  of  these  notes  were  issued 
prior  to  May  i,  1864,  but  on  the  301)1  of  June  of  that  year 


72  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

this  issue  was  recalled  and  another  substituted  in  its  room, 
bearing  interest  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum ;  which  issue, 
before  January,  1866,  amounted  to  nearly  $225,000,000. 
These  notes  matured  in  1867,  and  have  since  been  can- 
celed, with  the  exception  of  about  $800,000,  which  at 
the  close  of  the  present  year  (1871)  still  remain  in  cir- 
culation. 

On  the  25th  of  February,  1863,  the  National  Banking 
System  was  established  by  Congress,  giving  to  institutions 
which  should  organize  under  the  law  an  aggregate  circula- 
tion of  $300,000,000.  The  State  bank  circulation  was  still 
extant,  but  was  prospectively  repealed,  so  to  speak,  by 
this  act,  which  imposed  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent,  on  the  cir- 
culation of  these  institutions,  to  take  effect  after  July  i, 
1866.  This  brings  our  narrative  to  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  a  year  later,  in  the  spring  of  1866,  with  a  portion  of 
the  $190,000,000  of  State  Bank  circulation  still  extant, 
$357,500,000  of  legal-tender  notes,  a  portion  of  the  author- 
ized $300,000, ooo  of  National  bank  currency,  $40,000,000, 
nearly,  of  fractional  currency,  together  with  demand  and 
compound-interest  notes,  the  paper  Money  of  the  United 
States  amounted  to  the  colossal  sum  of  about  $900,000,000. 

The  National  banks  were  required  by  the  act  which 
created  them  to  have  on  hand  a  certain  amount  of  either 
legal-tenders  or  other  lawful  Money  of  the  Government  as 
a  reserve  fund  for  the  redemption  of  their  circulation  and 
payment  of  deposits.  The  compound-interest  notes  issued 
under  the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  had  passed,  in  a  great 
measure,  into  the  possession  of  these  banks,  who  had  held 
them  as  a  reserve  fund  instead  of  legal-tenders,  by  reason 
of  the  fact  that  the  former  yielded  an  interest  of  six  per 
cent.,  while  the  latter  afforded  no  return  whatever.  When 
these  notes  matured  in  1867  the  banks  had  sufficient  influ- 
ence upon  legislation  to  secure  the  enactment  of  the  act  of 
March  2  of  that  year,  which  authorized  the  redemption  of 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  73 

these  notes  to  the  extent  of  $50,000,000  in  certificates  of 
indebtedness,  to  be  issued  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
payable  on  demand  and  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of 
three  per  cent,  per  annum.  That  is,  by  this  act  of  March 
2,  1867,  an  issue  of  $50,000,000  of  these  certificates  was 
authorized  to  take  up  an  equal  sum  of  compound-interest 
notes.  This  issue  of  certificates  passed  mostly  to  the  pos- 
session of  the  National  banks,  which  at  the  close  of  the 
present  year  (1871),  still  hold  a  portion  of  the  amount 
now  outstanding  as  a  partial  reserve  fund  for  the  purposes 
above  named. 

They  hold  them  as  such  a  reserve  fund  instead  of  legal- 
tenders,  for  the  same  reason  that  they  held  compound-in- 
terest notes  in  preference  thereto — namely,  that  the  certifi- 
cates yield  interest,  while  the  legal-tenders  do  not. 

By  an  act  of  July  25,  1868,  an  additional  issue  of 
$25, 000,000  of  these  three  percent,  certificates  was  author- 
ized, thus  swelling  the  sum-total  thereof  to  $75,000,000. 

During  the  winter  of  1869  and  1870  the  Western  portion 
of  the  country  insisted  that  it  had  not  a  sufficient  circulat- 
ing medium  for  the  prosecution  of  its  ordinary  commercial 
and  business  pursuits.  The  old  State  banks,  whose  circula- 
tion, it  will  be  remembered,  was  to  be  taxed  at  the  rate  of 
ten  per  cent,  subsequent  to  July  i,  1866,  had  mostly  all 
reorganized  under  the  National  Bank  Act,  so  that  the 
entire  banking  business  of  the  country  was,  and  had  been 
for  about  four  years,  entirely  under  the  control  of  the 
General  Government.  In  response  to  this  sectional  clamor 
for  more  currency,  Congress,  on  the  i2th  of  July,  1870, 
passed  an  act  of  which  the  principal  features  are  as  follows : 
A  further  issue  of  $54,000,000  of  bank  currency  was  author- 
ized, in  addition  to  the  $300,000,000  already  in  circula- 
tion. This  $54,000,000  of  additional  currency  was  to  be 
issued  exclusively  to  new  banks  which  should  organize  in 
the  territory  where  the  volume  of  circulating  medium  was 
7  D 


74  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

alleged  to  be  insufficient,  provided  such  institutions  should 
organize  and  demand  such  currency  within  the  space  of 
one  year  from  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  act ;  otherwise 
this  additional  currency  should  be  issued  to  banks  already 
organized  in  the  districts  where  the  amount  of  currency 
was  deemed  inadequate  for  business  purposes,  if  such  in- 
stitutions so  desired.  The  act  provided,  moreover,  that 
with  every  issue  of  currency  as  thereby  authorized  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  call  in,  redeem  and  cancel 
a  like  amount  of  the  three  per  cent,  certificates  of  the  issue 
of  March  2,  1867,  and  that  no  National  bank  should  there- 
after have  a  circulation  in  excess  of  the  sum  of  $500,000. 

This  act  also  provided  for  "  an  equalization  of  the  cur- 
rency," by  directing  that  after  the  additional  issue  of 
$54,000,000  of  the  same,  provided  for  as  before  described, 
should  have  been  taken  by  the  National  banks,  $25,000,000 
of  bank  currency  should  be  withdrawn  from  banks  in 
localities  where  there  was  an  excess,  and  be  distributed 
among  banks  in  localities  where  there  was  a  scarcity  of 
circulating  medium.  The  scarcity  and  excess  were  to  be 
ascertained  by  the  census  of  1870.  At  the  close  of  the 
present  year  (1871)  only  about  $25,000,000  of  this  addi- 
tional issue  of  bank  currency  have  been  taken  either  by  old 
or  new  banks,  consequently  there  has  been  no  "equaliza- 
tion of  the  currency"  as  provided  by  the  act  of  July  12. 
1870.  The  reason  why  the  entire  $54,000,000  of  additional 
currency  has  not  been  taken  by  the  banks  will  be  considered 
farther  on. 

This  act,  moreover,  authorized  the  organization  of  gold 
banks,  which  might  issue  notes  of  not  less  than  five  dollars 
each,  payable  in  gold,  the  amount  of  such  issue  not  to 
exceed  $1,000,000.  Every  bank  so  organizing  was,  more- 
over, obliged  to  hold  in  its  vaults  a  sum  of  gold  and  silver 
equal  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  amount  of  its  circula- 
tion, as  a  reserve  fund  for  the  redemption  of  the  same. 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  7$ 

This  redemption  was  to  be  further  secured  by  a  deposit 
of  Government  securities  with  the  Treasury  in  the  same 
manner  as  in  the  case  of  currency  banks.  Only  two  such 
banks  at  the  close  of  the  present  year  (1871)  have  been  es- 
tablished— one  in  Boston  and  the  other  in  San  Francisco — 
and  their  aggregate  circulation  at  the  same  period  amounts 
to  $520,000. 

This  completes  a  general  historic  outline  of  the  present 
paper  Money  of  the  United  States.  It  has  been  somewhat 
extended,  but  unavoidably  so  if  a  clear  and  definite  state- 
ment of  the  nature  and  amount  of  each  paper  issue  is  at  all 
desirable.  Allusion  has  been  had  to  the  National  banks 
only  as  their  creation  has  swelled  the  volume  of  our  paper 
Money.  The  only  omission  that  has  been  made  is  of  the 
old  demand  and  Treasury  notes  of  1861,  the  temporary  loan 
and  one-year  certificates  of  1862,  and  the  one  and  two-year 
notes  of  1863;  all  of  which  do  not  amount  to  but  about 
$400,000.  The  National  banking  system  itself,  as  already 
announced,  will  form  the  subject  of  a  separate  chapter  of 
this  treatise. 

A  statement  will  now  be  made  of  the  amount  of  paper 
Money  in  actual  circulation  in  the  United  States  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1871,  when  the  further  line  of  discussion 
will  be  pursued  as  already  indicated.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  only  $24,703,000  of  three  per  cent,  certificates  are  in- 
cluded in  this  statement.  The  gross  amount  of  these  cer- 
tificates still  extant  at  the  close  of  the  present  year  (1871)  is 
$31,883,000,  but  $7,180,000  of  this  sum  are  held  by  the 
National  banks  as  a  partial  reserve  fund,  thus  reducing  the 
amount  in  actual  circulation  to  $24,703,000,  as  above  indi- 
cated. The  amount  of  compound-interest  and  legal-tender 
notes  included  in  this  statement  is  based  upon  a  similar 
calculation.  The  gross  amount  of  the  latter  still  extant 
at  the  time  above  stated,  as  already  seen,  is  $357,500,000, 
but  about  $107,000,000  of  these  notes  are  also  held  by  the 


76  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

National  banks  as  a  reserve,  thus  leaving  only  $250, 500,000 
in  actual  use  as  a  circulating  medium. 

Paper  Money  in  Actual  Circulation  in  the  United  States  at 
the  close  of  the  year  1871. 

Legal-tender  notes  $250,500,000.00 

National  bank  currency 325,466,862.00 

Fractional  currency 39,166,916.08 

Compound-interest  notes 768,600.00 

Three  per  cent,  certificates 24,703,000.00 

Total $640,605,378.08 

An  examination  of  the  practical  bearings  of  the  circu- 
lation of  this  immense  volume  of  paper  Money  upon  our 
commercial  interests  will  be  made  farther  on  in  its  appro- 
priate place ;  the  foregoing  remarks  are  merely  by  way  of 
narrative. 

II.  LEGAL-TENDER  NOTES. 

The  only  extended  discussion  that  remains  to  be  pursued 
for  the  purposes  of  the  present  chapter  is  that  which  bears 
upon  the  three  concluding  topics — namely  :  "  The  Amount 
of  Circulating  Medium  needed  in  the  United  States  at  the 
present  time,"  "Evils  of  the  present  Circulation,"  and 
"  Resumption  of  Specie  Payments."  A  little  additional 
comment  upon  one  or  two  phases  of  that  portion  of  our 
paper  Money  known  as  legal-tender  notes,  which  could  not 
find  an  appropriate  place  in  the  narrative  of  our  circu- 
lating medium  just  concluded,  seems,  however,  almost  in- 
dispensable. 

The  first  issue  of  $150,000,000  of  legal -tender  notes  in 
the  spring  of  1862,  as  already  observed,  was  a  measure  of 
necessity,  commendable  for  its  wisdom  and  in  no  way 
censurable  for  extravagance.  It  merely  filled  the  void  in 
our  circulating  medium  occasioned  by  the  retirement  of 
specie  from  circulation,  or  at  most  did  not  inflate  the 
currency  above  $25,000,000.  These  notes  are  theoretically, 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  7/ 

though  not  practically,  payable  on  demand.  The  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  act  which  created  them  evidently  intended 
that  their  existence  should  be  a  short  one.  The  true  cha- 
racter and  scope  of  the  issue,  and  the  temporary  purpose  it 
was  intended  to  serve,  were  fully  appreciated  by  a  pro- 
vision of  the  original  act,  which  made  these  notes  convertible 
at  any  time  into  a  six  per  cent.  United  States  bond.  In 
other  words,  the  Government,  for  the  time  being,  for  the 
purpose  of  serving  its  immediate  necessities,  forced  a  loan 
from  the  people  without  interest,  with  the  understanding 
that  this  loan  might  be  funded  in  a  Government  bond, 
bearing  regular  legal  interest,  as  soon  as  the  same  could  be 
properly  matured  and  put  upon  the  market  for  sale.  This 
wise  provision  was  subsequently  repealed,  and  the  entire 
amount  of  the  several  issues  of  these  notes,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  held  as  a  reserve  by  the  National  banks — 
namely,  $250,500,000 — is  still  traversing  the  avenues  of 
commerce,  shamelessly  begging,  yea,  forcibly  taking  shelter 
from  every  member  of  the  community,  so  many  libels  upon 
the  credit  and  good  faith  of  the  Government,  unblushing 
and  omnipresent  heralds  of  a  policy  which,  for  nearly  a 
decade,  has  been  a  continued  subject  of  public  scandal,  an 
object  of  merited  crimination,  and  a  disgrace  upon  the  his- 
toric and  financial  annals  of  the  United  States. 

The  action  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  upon 
the  constitutionality  of  the  measure  which  authorized  the 
emission  of  these  legal-tenders  has  been  singularly  vacil- 
lating, undignified,  non-judicial,  if  not  entirely  irregular. 
In  the  spring  of  1870  a  case  designed  to  test  the  consti- 
tutionality of  the  act  was  brought  before  this  tribunal,  fully, 
ably  and  exhaustively  argued,  and  a  decision  rendered 
which  held  the  measure  inapplicable  to  all  contracts  made 
before  its  enactment,  and  of  binding  force  as  to  all  con- 
tracts subsequent  thereto.  This  decision  met  the  approval 
and  indorsement  of  the  commercial  world  and  legal  pro- 
7« 


78  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

fession,  but  in  the  spring  of  1871,  as  generally  conceded, 
for  the  seemingly  absurd  and  ridiculous  reason  that  the 
decision  of  1870  was  not  promulgated  from  a  full  bench 
of  the  court,  a  rehearing  of  the  case  was  ordered,  and  the 
decision  of  1870  reversed,  to  the  extent  of  making  the  act 
applicable  to  all  contracts  antecedent  to  the  date  of  its 
enactment ;  and  if  constitutional  as  to  all  contracts  prior, 
it  is,  a  fortiori,  as  to  all  subsequent  to  that  date. 

By  this  decision  the  Supreme  Court  assumes  the  position 
that  the  validity  and  binding  force  of  its  decisions  depends 
upon  the  number  of  judges  that  sit  upon  its  bench  (and 
it  never  sits  without  a  legal  quorum,  so  to  speak),  and  the 
highest  judicial  authority  of  a  people  who  claim  to  be  the 
farthest  advanced  in  civilization,  the  science  of  government 
and  the  maintenance  of  Christianity,  declares  a  doctrine  to 
be  good  morals  and  sound  law  which  allows  a  man  who 
has  incurred  indebtedness  to  the  amount  of  a  thousand 
dollars  to  obtain  a  legal  discharge  from  the  same  upon  pay- 
ment of  one-half  or  two-thirds  the  sum,  notwithstanding 
his  ability  to  cancel,  and  more  than  cancel,  the  entire 
amount  of  his  pecuniary  liabilities. 

The  discussion  of  the  constitutionality  of  this  measure  is 
foreign  to  the  purposes  of  this  chapter,  and  perhaps  the 
foregoing  allusion  to  the  action  of  the  Supreme  Court  is 
also  irrelevant,  but  it  seemed  to  demand  a  passing  notice. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  by  the  act  of  July  n,  1862, 
which  authorized  the  issue  of  $150,000,000  of  legal-tender 
notes,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  directed  to  receive 
deposits  of  sums  not  less  than  one  hundred  dollars,  the 
gross  amount  of  which  should  not  exceed  $100,000,000,  at 
a  rate  of  interest  not  exceeding  five  per  cent,  per  annum, 
for  a  period  not  less  than  thirty  days ;  for  which  he  was  to 
issue  a  certificate,  payable  at  any  time  upon  ten  days' 
notice;  and  "that  not  less  than  $50,000,000  of  this  issue 
of  greenbacks  shall  be  reserved  for  the  purpose  of  securing 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  79 

prompt  payment  of  these  deposits  when  demanded,  and 
shall  be  issued  and  used  only  when  in  the  judgment  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  the  same  or  any  part  thereof  may 
be  used  for  that  purpose."  Under  this  act  such  deposits 
were  made,  such  certificates  were  issued  and  afterward 
redeemed,  in  the  manner  above  indicated,  in  the  sum  of 
nearly  £50,000,000,  and  yet  respectable  authorities  hold 
that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has  still  a  discretionary 
power  to  issue  $50,000,000  more  legal-tenders  for  the  pur- 
pose of  redeeming  the  three  per  cent,  certificates  issued 
under  the  acts  of  March  2,  1867,  and  July  25,  1868.  These 
last- mentioned  acts  give  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
no  such  authority,  and  as  the  act  of  July  n,  1862,  directs 
such  an  issue  "  only  when  in  the  judgment  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  the  same  or  any  part  thereof  may  be  used 
for  that  purpose" — that  is,  for  the  redemption  of  certificates 
issued  under  this  act,  and  not  for  those  to  be  issued  under 
distinct  and  subsequent  ones,  which  make  no  allusion  to  the 
act  of  1862 — the  power  of  the  Secretary  in  this  respect 
would  seem  to  be  exhausted.  If  not,  an  express  statute  for- 
bidding any  exercise  of  such  discretion  would  seem  emi- 
nently proper,  in  order  that  the  will  of  one  man  shall  not, 
at  some  future  day,  constitute  sufficient  reason  for  swelling 
the  volume  of  this  most  pernicious  portion  of  our  circulat- 
ing medium,  when  every  dollar  of  it  should  have  been  long 
since  funded  or  withdrawn. 

It  has  always  been  a  favorite  argument  with  the  defend- 
ers of  the  legal-tenders,  ever  since  their  emission,  that 
they  cost  the  Government  nothing  as  a  circulating  medium. 
In  other  words,  the  supporters  of  this  measure  have  taken 
pride  in  declaring  that  the  Government  has  made  a  forced 
loan  from  community,  without  interest,  to  the  extent  of 
$357,500,000,  and  that  the  consequent  saving  of  about 
525,000,000  of  interest  annually  is  an  end  which  justifies 
the  objectionable,  not  to  say  illegal,  means.  Leaving  the 


8O  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

moral  aspect  of  the  question  out  of  consideration,  the  legal- 
tenders  do  cost  the  Government,  under  its  present  financial 
policy,  about  $5,000,000  per  annum.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  ever  since  the  close  of  the  war,  has  kept  idle 
in  his  vaults,  upon  an  average,  full  $80,000,000  in  gold. 
The  only  conceivable  reason  for  the  retention  of  this  vast 
amount  of  specie,  and  the  only  one  which  the  finance 
department  has  ever  assigned  for  the  non-employment  of  this 
immense  hoard,  is  that  it  is  needed  to  protect  the  exchange- 
able value  of  the  legal-tenders  in  circulation.  The  reason- 
ing is,  that  the  Government  must  control  a  larger  amount 
of  gold  than  is  possible  for  gold  speculators  to  buy  up,  and 
thereby,  by  being  able  to  throw  gold  upon  the  market 
when  necessary,  prevent  its  being  "cornered"  by  the 
"operators,"  and  in  so  doing  also  render  the  deprecia- 
tion of  the  legal-tenders  impossible.  That  is,  with  gold  in 
the  hands  of  speculators  the  premium  upon  the  same  ad- 
vances, the  breach  widens  between  the  value  of  specie  and 
our  sole  legal-tender  in  a  paper  form,  the  measure  of  value 
of  commodities  is  disturbed,  and  the  commerce  and  indus- 
tries of  the  country  are  put  in  jeopardy,  unless  the  Treasury 
has  sufficient  gold  for  sale  to  ward  off  the  danger !  Possibly 
true.  Now,  of  the  $357,500,000  of  legal-tenders  which 
have  been  issued,  the  National  banks  hold,  at  the  close  of 
the  present  year  (1871),  about  $107,000,000  as  a  partial 
reserve  to  protect  their  circulation  and  deposits,  so  that  the 
gross  amount  of  this  species  of  our  paper  Money  virtually 
used  as  a  circulating  medium  at  the  time  above  stated  is 
not  more  than  $250,500,000.  The  deduction,  then,  is  that 
for  the  use  of  this  amount  of  legal-tenders  the  Government 
annually  pays  a  sum  equal  to  the  interest  upon  $80,000,000 
of  gold — namely,  $4,800,000.  This  sum  is  of  course 
annually  compounded,  for  if  the  Government  appropriated 
this  annual  excess  of  $80,000,000  of  gold  to  the  redemption 
of  six  per  cent,  bonds,  there  would  be  a  yearly  saving  of 


MONEY  AND  CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  8 1 

interest  upon  the  interest  of  $80,000,000,  in  addition  to 
interest  upon  the  principal  sum  itself. 

Another  pet  measure  of  the  legal-tender  theorists  is  to 
withdraw  the  $325,000,000  of  National  bank  circulation 
and  issue  additional  legal-tenders  in  its  room.  They  claim 
that  the  Government  is  losing  from  fifteen  to  twenty  millions 
of  dollars  annually,  by  paying  the  banks  interest  on  the  bonds 
which  the  National  Bank  Act  requires  these  institutions  to 
hold  as  an  ultimate  fund  for  the  redemption  of  their  circu- 
lation. In  other  words,  they  are  not  satisfied  with  taking 
£20,000,000,  the  amount  of  interest  saved  by  the  forced 
loan  of  $357,500,000  of  legal-tenders,  annually  from  the 
community  without  any  consideration,  but,  if  possible, 
wish  to  double  the  sum.  There  has  been  waged,  indeed, 
for  the  last  six  years,  an  unremitting  warfare  between  the 
National  bank  circulation  and  the  legal-tenders.  Each  one 
is  constantly  accusing  the  other  of  the  evils  resulting  from 
our  present  redundant  currency. 

As  the  latter,  in  this  contest,  are  peculiarly  the  aggressive 
party,  and  as  the  full  investigation  of  the  subject  would 
involve  a  thorough  examination  of  the  theory  and  practical 
workings  of  the  National  banking  system,  the  discussion  of 
the  topic  finds  a  more  pertinent  and  appropriate  place 
within  the  limits  of  the  chapter  of  this  treatise  which  is 
partially  devoted  to  a  thorough  consideration  of  this  sys- 
tem. The  preceding  paragraph  is  merely  the  statement  of 
a  fact  which  logical  accuracy  demanded  should  be  made 
under  this  sub-subject  of  legal-tender  notes,  but  argument, 
pro  or  con.,  would  in  this  connection  be  out  of  order.  The 
statement  may  here  be  taken  upon  trust  that  the  claim  of 
the  legal-tender  theorists  in  this  direction  is  entirely  un-> 
tenable,  and  the  proof  of  the  proposition  may  be  found  in 
the  chapter  above  designated.  It  is  an  attempt  to  extend 
the  issue  of  a  species  of  currency  which  works  an  actual 
robbery  of  the  public. 

Dl 


82  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

III.  THE  AMOUNT  OF   CIRCULATING  MEDIUM  NEEDED  IN 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AT  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 
The  statement  will  probably  meet  with  the  approval  of 
the  entire  business  community  that  in  the  spring  of  the 
year  1861,  prior  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  the 
amount  of  circulating  medium  in  the  United  States  was 
abundantly  sufficient  to  satisfy  all  legitimate  demands  for 
Money.  This  amount  of  circulating  medium,  as 'already 
seen,  was  about  $335,000,000.  The  gross  amount  of  prod- 
ucts for  this  year,  moreover,  was  seen  to  be  $4,000,000,000. 
It  has  also  been  estimated  that  $1,000,000,000  were  paid  for 
untangible  products  of  industry,  so  to  speak,  such  as  pro- 
fessional labor.  If  $1,000,000,000  worth  of  the  products 
of  that  year  is  set  aside  for  immediate  consumption  with- 
out having  first  traversed  the  avenues  of  commerce  (and 
that  is  a  very  liberal  estimate),  it  is  seen  that  $4,000,000,000 
worth  of  both  tangible  and  untangible  products  of  industry 
was  in  commercial  circulation  during  the  year  1861.  In 
addition  to  this,  exchanges  of  real  estate  were  effected 
during  this  year  to  the  amount  of  about  $1,200,000,000, 
so  that  $5,200,000,000  represent  the  aggregate  moneyed 
value  of  all  species  of  property  which  was  bought  and  sold 
in  1 86 1 ;  and  the  purchases  and  sales  were  effected  by  the 
means  of  $335,000,000  of  specie  and  convertible  currency. 
The  proportion  of  aggregate  wealth  in  circulation  during 
this  year  to  that  of  Money  is  thus  seen  to  be  very  nearly 
as  fifteen  to  one.  Granting  the  original  premise  to  be  true 
that  the  ratio  of  circulation  between  the  wealth  and  Money 
of  the  country  in  1861  was  a  just  one,  and  the  proposition 
is  tenable  that,  all  other  things  being  equal,  by  just  so  much 
as  the  business  of  the  country  at  the  present  time  exceeds 
in  amount  that  of  the  year  1861,  in  just  that  relative  degree 
should  the  volume  of  our  circulating  medium  be  now  ex- 
tended. There  is  no  complete  statistical  report  extant  at 
the  close  of  the  present  year  (1871)  showing  the  exact 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  83 

amount  of  the  business  of  the  country  at  this  period.  In 
the  absence  of  explicit  returns  there  is  no  better  criterion 
to  be  governed  by  than  the  increase  of  our  export  trade 
since  the  year  1860,  which  is  shown  by  statistics  to  be 
forty-nine  per  cent.  Assuming  that  this  represents  the 
increase  of  the  amount  of  wealth  now  in  circulation  in  this 
country  over  that  in  the  year  1861,  and  the  present  annual 
business  transactions  of  the  United  States  will  amount  to 
$7,748,000,000.  Now,  to  preserve  the  proportion  between 
the  amount  of  wealth  in  circulation  to  that  of  Money  in  the 
ratio  of  fifteen  to  one,  which  is  allowed  to  have  been  a  just 
one  in  1861,  add  forty-nine  per  cent,  to  the  amount  of 
circulating  medium  in  use  at  that  time,  and  the  requisite 
amount  of  Money  for  the  present  period  will  be  ascertained. 
The  result  of  the  calculation  will  show  that  $499,150,000 
should  be  the  extent  of  our  present  volume  of  circulating 
medium.  In  other  words,  if  it  required  $335,000,000  of 
circulating  medium  to  transact  business  to  the  extent  of 
$5,200,000,000  in  1861,  it  requires,  all  other  things  being 
equal,  $499,150,000  to  effect  the  proper  exchanges  of 
wealth  which  possesses  a  value  of  $7,748,000,000  in  1871. 
But  the  attendant  circumstances  are  very  far  from  being 
equal  in  one  important  particular.  Since  the  year  1861 
the  means  for  saving  the  use  of  Money  have  been  very 
largely  perfected  and  extended  in  the  systems  of  deposit 
checks,  notes,  drafts,  and,  more  important  than  all,  the 
clearing-house  system  of  our  large  cities.  This  last  was  in 
its  infancy  in  this  country  in  1861,  compared  with  its  pres- 
ent colossal  proportions.  The  report  of  the  clearing-house 
of  New  York  City,  for  instance,  for  the  year  1869,  shows 
that  daily  accounts  of  debit  and  credit  between  the  banks 
of  that  city  were  settled  amounting,  upon  an  average,  to 
the  enormous  sum  of  $125,000,000,  and  that  the  average 
sum  of  Money  used  to  effect  these  daily  settlements  did  not 
exceed  $5,000,000  ;  the  balancp  of  these  accounts — namely, 


84  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

$120,000,000 — being  adjusted  by  way  of  offset  in  the  ex- 
change of  checks,  notes  and  bills  of  exchange  which  the 
respective  banks  held  against  each  other.  In  the  year 
1 86 1  these  bank  settlements  were  nearly  all  effected  by 
actual  manipulation  and  exchange  of  Money.  An  exact 
estimate  cannot  be  made  of  the  extent  of  this  saving  in  the 
use  of  Money  within  the  last  decade,  but  it  is  a  very  mate- 
rial one,  and  has  been  placed  by  good  authorities  at  twenty- 
five  per  cent. ;  fifteen  per  cent,  is  certainly  a  very  small  es- 
timate of  the  saving  which  has  been  effected  in  the  use  of 
Money  by  these  means.  Allowing  this  to  be  the  proper 
estimate,  a  deduction  of  fifteen  per  cent,  from  $499,150,000 
will  give  the  amount  of  circulating  medium  required  for  the 
present  business  purposes  of  the  United  States — namely. 
$424,277,500.  The  former  amount,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, is  the  sum  which,  by  previous  calculation,  would 
represent  the  proper  volume  of  our  currency  at  the  present 
time,  were  it  not  for  this  saving  of  fifteen  per  cent,  which 
has  been  effected  in  the  use  of  Money  within  the  last  ten 
years. 

By  a  recurrence  to  the  statement  of  the  amount  of  paper 
Money  in  actual  circulation  in  the  United  States  in  1871,  it 
is  seen  that  the  same  amounts  to  $640,605,378.08,  fully  fifty 
per  cent,  above  the  sum  really  needed,  as  shown  by  the 
foregoing  calculation;  and  the  excess,  about  $217,000,000, 
it  will  be  noticed,  nearly  equals  the  volume  of  legal-tender 
notes  or  greenbacks  in  actual  use  by  the  public — namely, 
$250,500,000. 

IV.  EVILS  OF  THE  PRESENT  PAPER  CIRCULATION. 
The  evils  of  our  present  paper  circulation  have  their 
origin  solely  in  its  redundant  condition.  These  evils,  more- 
over, are  both  past  and  present,  actual  and  potential.  An 
account  of  those  that  belong  to  the  past,  by  reason  of  their 
similarity  to  those  still  in  existence,  is  not  particularly  per- 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.          85 

tinent  to  the  scope  of  this  treatise.  They  are  events  that 
indeed  deserve  a  place,  and  an  important  one,  in  the  annals 
of  American  literature,  but  the  task  of  giving  them  such  a 
record  devolves  more  properly  upon  the  historian.  This 
has  been  partially — though  not  fully,  and  however  deep  the 
research,  and  however  facile  the  pen  that  shall  transcribe 
the  narrative,  never  will  be  fully — accomplished.  They 
form  a  part,  to  be  sure,  of  the  history  of  community  in 
general,  but  they  moreover  form  a  part,  and  a  very  large 
one,  of  the  history  of  private  life,  whose  recesses  of  pri- 
vation and  suffering  history  can  never  fathom,  whose  only 
record  is  that  which  years  of  self-denying  and  ill-remune- 
rated toil  have  written  in  deep  and  indelible  lines  upon 
the  blameless  foreheads  of  millions  of  careworn  parents, 
and  which  undeserved  want  has  left  in  the  stunted  forms 
and  hapless  lives  of  a  generation  of  innocent  and  unsus- 
pecting children.  The  indescribable  suffering  of  these  sad 
and  silent  witnesses,  who  carry  in  their  mournful  existence 
these  tearful  evidences  of  the  evils  of  our  present  financial 
policy,  and  who  are  to  be  found  in  every  town,  village  and 
hamlet  of  the  republic,  will  never  form  a  subject  which  will 
inspire  the  historian's  pen  or  make  an  impress  upon  the 
gilded  leaf  of  literature.  Heaven  alone  has  marked  their 
anguish,  and  to  many  of  them,  alas !  Heaven  can  only 
bring  relief. 

These  past  evils  of  our  present  redundant  paper  currency — 
and  for  the  last  five  years,  at  least,  needlessly  and  inexcus- 
ably so — will  consequently  not  engage  further  attention,  with 
the  exception  of  a  little  general  comment.  The  burden  has 
fallen  most  heavily  upon  laborers,  salaried  men,  agricultu- 
rists and  the  working-classes  in  general.  The  excessive 
issues  of  paper  Money,  which  so  enormously  enhanced  the 
prices  of  commodities,  also  enhanced  the  opportunities  of 
the  business  and  commercial  world,  but  the  wages,  salaries 
and  returns  of  the  classes  above  mentioned  have  never  in- 

8 


86  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

creased  in  anything  like  a  relative  ratio  with  the  augmented 
cost  of  living. 

One  of  the  most  obnoxious  features — and  obnoxious  be- 
cause wholly  unreasonable  and  unprecedented — of  this 
paper  Money  has  been  seen  in  the  system  which  has  been 
pursued  in  its  redemption,  or  rather  exchange,  when  pre- 
sented in  a  mutilated  form.  The  Government,  after  for- 
cing a  loan  upon  community  of  $400,000,000  of  legal-tender 
notes  and  fractional  currency,  as  if  not  satisfied  with  the 
returns  of  this  seemingly  illegal  and  abortive  scheme  of 
taxation,  has  followed  the  practice  of  making  a  deduction 
from  the  amount  of  mutilated  pieces  of  these  issues  when 
presented  for  redemption  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of 
the  mutilation.  That  is,  if  a  legal-tender  $5  note  was  pre- 
sented for  redemption  (or  rather  for  exchange,  it  could  not  be 
redeemed)  with  one-eighth  part  of  it  detached,  other  currency 
has  only  been  given  for  it  to  the  amount  of  $4.371/2,  unless 
the  holder  could  positively  swear  'that  the  missing  portion 
was  actually  destroyed,  which  of  course  has  been  nearly 
always  impossible.  Up  to  October  i,  1871,  Government 
had  taken  from  the  people  in  this  unwarranted  manner 
the  sum  of  $250,000,  and  the  agent  of  the  Associated  Press 
joyfully  telegraphed  the  fact  from  Washington,  adding  that 
"  This  is  a  clear  gain  to  the  Government  and  a  tax  on  cir- 
culation." The  paltry  excuse  for  this  custom  has  been 
that  the  detached  pieces  might  be  pasted  together  and  form 
so  perfect  a  note  that  the  Government  could  not  detect  the 
fraud — that  other  currency  would  be  given  in  exchange  for 
such  counterfeits,  and  thus  the  Government  be  a  loser. 
With  such  Department  clerks  as  the  present  system  of  civil 
service  furnishes  to  attend  to  such  duties  of  exchange,  this 
has  undoubtedly  been  a  good  and  valid  plea  in  defence  of 
the  rule.  The  worst  feature  of  the  whole  matter  has  been 
that  this  loss  has  fallen  upon  the  poorer  classes.  The  busi- 
ness portion  of  community  have  been  acquainted  with  the 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  87 

law  and  avoided  the  amercement,  while  the  laboring 
masses,  ignorant  of  the  same,  became  the  ultimate  posses- 
sors of  this  mutilated  currency,  and  consequently  sustained 
the  loss.  A  reform  was  recently  instituted  providing  that 
legal-tender  notes  and  fractional  currency  should  thereafter 
be  received  at  their  full  value,  "  provided  that  three-fifths 
of  the  original  proportion  of  such  notes  are  presented  in 
one  piece.  If  more  than  one-half  and  less  than  five-eighths 
is  presented,  half  the  face  value  will  be  paid  ;  less  than  half 
a  note  will  be  redeemed  only  on  affidavit  that  the  missing 
portion  has  been  totally  destroyed."  This  alleviates  the 
evils  resulting  from  the  former  system  of  redemption,  but 
does  not  wholly  remove  them. 

The  laboring  and  salaried  classes  of  community  and  our  ag- 
ricultural population,  as  they  ever  have  been  since  its  inau- 
guration, still  continue  to  be  the  principal  sufferers  from  the 
evils  of  our  present  redundant  currency.  The  ratio  of 
increase  in  the  wages  and  salaries  of  the  first  two  has  been 
by  no  means  proportionate  to  that  in  the  prices  of  all 
commodities  which  constitute  the  ordinary  means  of  sub- 
sistence, and  at  so  late  a  period  as  the  close  of  the  year  1871 
this  increase  in  the  income  of  the  salaried  and  laboring 
classes  was  from  twenty  to  forty  per  cent,  below  the  relative 
enhancement  of  ordinary  living  expenses.  The  agricultural 
population  are  prejudiced  in  their  interests  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  and  in  about  the  same  degree  as  were  the 
farmers  in  Illinois  in  the  illustration  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter of  the  evils  which  result  from  an  undue  extension  of 
the  volume  of  paper  Money. 

It  was  demonstrated  in  the  course  of  that  discussion  that 
the  exchangeable  value  of  paper  Money,  by  reason  of  its 
non-intrinsic  character  and  consequent  inability  to  enter 
the  field  of  traffic  as  a  commodity,  is  measured  by  the  law 
of  scarcity  and  excess.  In  other  words,  its  value  depre- 
ciates in  a  direct  ratio  with  the  increase  that  is  made  in  the 


88  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

amount  in  circulation,  and  a  further  logical  conclusion  is; 
as  already  shown,  that  the  prices  of  commodities  of  which 
paper  Money  is  the  sole  measure  of  value — and  these  com- 
modities are  such  as  are  produced  and  find  an  exclusive 
market  within  the  territories  where  paper  Money  is  circu- 
lated— increase  in  a  direct  ratio  with  the  decline  in  the  value 
of  such  a  medium  of  exchange.  It  was  also  shown  in  that 
discussion  that  the  premium  on  specie,  by  reason  that  its 
value  for  the  uses  of  a  circulating  medium  over  that  of 
paper  Money  is  checked  to  a  certain  extent  by  its  market 
price  as  a  commodity,  never  rises  in  a  ratio  proportionate 
to  either  the  decline  in  the  value  of  a  redundant  currency 
or  the  consequent  advance  in  the  prices  of  commodities. 
It  also  appeared  in  that  discussion  that  when  the  bulk  of 
any  particular  product  finds  a  market  in  a  foreign  country, 
the  price  of  such  a  product  for  shipment  governs  the  price 
for  that  portion  of  it  which  is  sold  in  the  home  market. 

The  paper  Money  of  the  United  States  at  the  close  of  the 
present  year  (1871),  as  already  seen,  is  fully  fifty  per  cent, 
above  the  necessary  volume.  Its  value  is  consequently  de- 
preciated, and  the  prices  of  commodities  of  whose  value  it 
is  the  sole  measure — namely,  those  which  are  produced  and 
find  an  exclusive  market  in  this  country — are  enhanced  in 
just  this  ratio.  The  average  premium  on  specie  at  the 
close  of  this  year  (1871),  moreover,  for  reasons  above 
cited,  is  about  twelve  and  a  half  per  cent.  The  price  of  all 
our  agricultural  products  is  influenced  in  a  great  degree  by 
that  of  one  of  our  principal  staples  of  agriculture — namely, 
cotton.  The  great  bulk  of  this  staple,  fully  four-fifths  of  it, 
finds  a  market  in  European  and  other  marts,  and  the  price 
of  that  portion  of  it  which  is  sold  in  our  home  market,  as 
already  shown,  is  governed  by  the  price  for  shipment. 
This  shipping  price  is  measured  by  a  specie  standard,  and 
the  agriculturists  of  the  country,  so  far  as  the  value  of  their 
products  is  governed  by  the  price  of  cotton — and  our  price 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  89 

lists  show  that  this  influence  is  wellnigh  absolute — are  con 
sequently  selling  the  same  by  a  measure  of  value  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  less  than  that  which  affixes  the  price  to 
articles  produced  and  sold  exclusively  in  this  country,  and 
which  they  are  constantly  purchasing  as  means  of  daily  sub- 
sistence. That  is,  with  specie  at  a  premium  of  twelve  and 
a  half  per  cent.,  and  our  paper  Money  depreciated  fifty  per 
cent.,  and  home  products  sold  exclusively  here  consequently 
enhanced  in  value  to  that  extent,  our  agriculturists  sell  an 
article  of  a  given  value  for  one  dollar  in  specie,  or  one 
dollar  and  twelve  and  a  half  cents  in  currency,  and  pay 
one  dollar  and  fifty  cents  in  currency  for  articles  of  subsist- 
ence of  a  given  value,  which  cost  their  owner  no  more  than 
did  the  farmer's  produce,  which  realizes  him  but  one  dollar 
and  twelve  and  a  half  cents.  The  present  redundant  cur- 
rency thus  robs  our  agricultural  population  of  twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  their  annual  produce.  This  theoretical  reason- 
ing is  abundantly  sustained  by  facts.  In  the  autumn  of 
1871  flour  was  quoted  upon  our  wholesale  price-lists  from 
twenty-two  to  Uventy-eight  per  cent,  below  the  ruling  rate 
in  1860,  and  pork  about  thirty  per  cent,  below  its  market 
value  prior  to  the  opening  of  hostilities. 

These  evils  of  our  redundant  currency  will  not  be  further 
considered,  and  attention  is  drawn  from  the  topic  to  that 
which  will  embrace  the  concluding  remarks  of  this  chapter — 
namely : 

V. — RESUMPTION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS. 

Of  all  the  duties  which  ever  devolve  upon  a  govern- 
ment for  execution  there  is  none  more  delicate  in  character, 
far-reaching  in  its  bearings  and  important  in  results  than 
the  one  effecting  a  transition  from  an  era  of  paper  Money 
to  the  establishment  or  re-establishment  of  specie  payments. 
It  is  an  end  which  can  never  be  attained,  however  great  the 
wisdom  which  directs  the  means  for  its  accomplishment, 
without  causing  dissatisfaction,  and  eliciting  censure  from 
8* 


90  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

some  portion  or  portions  of  the  community,  for  on  some  it 
is  sure  to  operate  with  disadvantage.  Gold  and  silver  con- 
stitute the  only  normal  and  legal  instruments  of  commerce 
for  measuring  the  value  and  effecting  exchanges  of  com- 
modities, and  when  once  compelled  by  violent  convulsions 
of  State  to  abdicate  the  throne  to  which  the  wisdom  of  the 
ancients  elected  them,  are  not  easily  enticed  to  reassume 
the  sceptre  which  has  been  unwarrantably  filched  from 
their  control. 

The  generic  term  which  covers  all  means  of  resumption 
is  contraction.  This  contraction,  or  resumption,  as  pleasure 
or  caprice  may  term  it,  may  be  effected  in  one  of  two  ways, 
and  one  of  these  is  immediate,  the  other  mediate,  in  the 
attainment  of  the  result.  The  first  is  to  call  in  the  paper 
Money  and  give  the  holder  specie  in  exchange ;  the  sec- 
ond is  to  fund  such  paper  Money  in  Government  securities 
which,  both  principal  and  interest,  are  ultimately  payable 
in  coin.  The  first  difficulty  in  the  way  of  effecting  resump- 
tion by  the  method  first  above  named  is  the  want  of  the 
necessary  specie  to  cancel  the  excessive  volume  of  paper 
Money  in  which  its  adoption  is  always  sure  to  terminate. 
Accumulation  for  this  purpose  is  a  slow  process,  and  seldom 
if  ever  resorted  to.  The  history  of  nations  resuming  specie 
payments  after  protracted  eras  of  paper  Money  almost 
invariably  shows  that  other  methods  have  been  pursued. 
England,  for  instance,  in  the  year  1819,  specie  payments 
having  been  suspended  since  1797,  adopted  a  scheme  of 
resumption,  in  pursuance  of  an  act  of  Parliament,  which 
required  the  Bank  of  England  to  immediately  commence 
the  redemption  of  its  notes  in  coin,  but  allowing  this  to  be 
consummated  by  slowly-advancing  stages.  The  bank  was 
required  to  commence  redemption  by  paying  specie  for  its 
notes  only  a  little  in  advance  of  their  rated  value  as  deter- 
mined by  the  premium  on  gold,  and  to  slightly  increase 
this  amount  at  frequent  intervals.  That  is,  if  the  notes  of 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.  9 1 

the  Bank  of  England  were  worth  ninety  cents  to  the  dollar, 
the  scheme  was  to  begin  redemption  of  the  same  by  first 
paying,  say,  ninety-three  cents  to  the  dollar  in  specie  for  all 
that  were  presented,  and  increase  the  valuation  at  stated 
intervals.  The  project,  as  all  readers  of  English  history 
are  aware,  was  a  success.  The  changes  were  so  slight  and 
of  so  frequent  occurrence  that  very  little  disturbance  re- 
sulted to  the  commerce  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  final 
period  of  full  resumption  was  anticipated  by  the  bank,  and 
its  notes  reached  a  par  valuation  with  specie  some  time 
before  the  date  suggested  by  the  act  of  Parliament. 

This  plan  has  been  recommended  by  high  authority  for  the 
adoption  of  our  Government  as  a  means  of  returning  to  specie 
payments ;  and  with  nearly  one  hundred  millions  of  coin 
constantly  hoarded  in  the  National  Treasury,  and  our  paper 
Money  at  a  valuation  of  about  eighty-five  cents  to  the 
dollar,  no  earthly  reason  can  be  presented,  neither  would 
any  arise,  barring  war,  why,  under  such  a  course,  the 
United  States  should  not  effect  a  full  resumption  at  any  time, 
within,  at  farthest,  two  years  after  the  inauguration  of  such 
a  system. 

The  second  plan  of  resumption  by  funding  our  paper 
Money,  or  rather  the  excess  of  it,  in  an  interest-bearing 
bond,  principal  and  interest  payable  in  coin,  is  equally 
feasible,  and  free  from  obstacles  which  would  militate 
against  its  reaching  a  successful  issue.  The  entire  amount 
of  legal-tender  notes — namely,  $357,500,000 — might  be 
gradually  withdrawn  in  this  manner  without  any  prejudice 
to  commercial  interests.  This  statement  may  at  first  glance 
seem  unwarranted,  when  the  fact  is  remembered  that,  by 
our  calculation  a  few  pages  back,  $217,000,000  nearly 
represent  the  excess  of  our  present  circulating  medium. 
It  must  also,  however,  be  remembered  that  $107,000,000 
of  this  issue  of  legal-tenders  are  held  as  a  reserve  by  the 
National  banks,  thus  leaving  only  $250,500,000  in  actual 


92  THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

use  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  As  the  notes  now  held  by 
the  National  banks  would  simply  be  exchanged,  under  such 
a  funding  process,  for  an  equal  amount  of  the  bonds  into 
which  the  whole  issue  would  be  funded,  $33,500,000 
would  represent  the  gross  sum  by  which  our  currency  would, 
in  this  manner,  appear  to  be  unduly  contracted.  This 
apparent  void  of  $33,500,000  would,  however,  be  speedily 
filled  with  specie,  which  such  contraction,  by  means  of  its 
placing  our  currency  at  a  par  valuation  with  gold  and 
silver,  would  force  from  the  amount  that  is  now  hoarded 
throughout  the  country. 

Large  holders  of  merchandise,  obligors  on  deferred  con- 
tracts and  obligations,  and  the  entire  portion  of  the  debtor 
class  of  community,  would  suffer  comparative  loss  by  such 
resumption ;  but  nearly  seven  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
exigencies  which  induced  this  era  of  paper  Money  have 
ceased  to  exist,  and  no  valid  reason  can  be  offered  by  the 
parties  above  named  why  they  have  not  ere  this  set  their 
houses  in  order  and  prepared  for  the  change. 

It  is  respectfully  submitted,  in  this  connection,  that  the 
plan  of  resumption  presented  by  Senator  Sumner  to  the 
United  States  Senate  in  the  winter  of  1871  and  1872  is 
unsound  in  theory  and  would  prove  mischievous  in  prac- 
tice. Mr.  Sumner  proposes  to  effect  resumption  by  issuing 
"every  month  ten  millions  of  interest-bearing  legal-tender 
notes,  similar  to  those  that  were  issued  in  1863  and  1864, 
and  to  cancel  a  like  amount  of  greenbacks,  the  process  to 
go  on  till  all  the  greenbacks  have  been  thus  replaced.  The 
new  notes,  he  proposes,  shall  bear  five  per  cent,  interest, 
and  shall  be  paid  in  coin  at  the  end  of  three  years,  or  con- 
verted into  five  per  cent,  bonds,  at  the  option  of  the  Gov- 
ernment." 

The  mischief  of  such  a  scheme  of  resumption  as  this  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  these  "  interest-bearing  legal-tender 
notes,  similar  to  those  that  were  issued  in  1863  and  1864," 


MONEY  AND   CURRENCY  OF  THE    U.  S.          93 

would  serve  the  double  purpose  of  capital  and  Money. 
They  would  almost  invariably,  in  the  first  instance,  be 
taken  for  purposes  of  investment,  like  any  other  Government 
security,  but  with  the  intention  of  using  them,  as  occasion 
might  require,  for  legitimate  business  pursuits  or  speculative 
purposes,  as  a  regular  medium  of  exchange.  While  held  as 
an  investment  our  circulating  medium  would  be  contracted, 
but  when  put  in  circulation  as  Money  the  volume  of  our 
currency  would  be  again  extended,  and  during  the  entire 
period  of  three  years  allotted  for  their  maturity  there  would 
be  a  constant  alternation  between  these  two  extremes. 
These  constant  changes  in  the  amount  of  our  circulating 
medium  would  produce  corresponding  vacillations  in  the 
relative  value  of  our  paper  Money  and  specie,  similar  and 
frequent  variations  in  the  value  of  all  commodities,  and  a 
consequent  ceaseless  disturbance  of  our  entire  commercial 
interests.  This  method  of  resumption  would  destroy  the 
first  fundamental  element  of  a  healthy  circulating  medium — 
namely,  stability — envelop  the  returns  of  labor,  business 
and  capital  with  uncertainty,  and  create  inevitable  stagna- 
tion and  distrust  in  every  scheme  of  private  enterprise  what- 
soever. 

For  proof  of  these  assertions  reference  may  be  had  to 
our  experience  with  the  notes  of  1863  and  1864,  which  Mr. 
Sumner  proposes  to  pattern  after  in  his  plan  of  resumption. 

The  first  issue  of  these  notes  was  made  in  the  winter  of  1862 
and  1863,  amounting  to  a  little  over  $100,000,000.  They 
were  used  in  precisely  the  same  manner  as  we  have  already 
indicated — at  one  time  as  Money  and  another  as  capital — 
with  precisely  the  same  results.  Prices  of  commodities  rose 
and  fell  during  the  next  six  months  in  an  alternate  ratio  of 
from  thirty  to  forty  per  cent.  Toward  the  close  of  the  year 
1864,  as  stated  in  the  early  part  of  this  discussion,  over 
5200,000,000  of  these  notes  were  in  circulation,  and  the  re- 
ports of  the  Money  market  during  the  early  part  of  this 


94  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

year  show  that  the  price  of  gold,  within  periods  of  no  more 
than  twelve  days,  ranged  from  $2.20  to  $2.75.  These 
changes  in  the  value  of  commodities  and  specie  resulted 
solely  from  the  disturbance  in  the  volume  of  the  circulating 
medium,  caused  by  this  alternate  ingress  and  egress  of  these 
compound-interest  notes.  They  were,  in  short,  one  of  the 
most  pernicious  species  of  paper  Money  issued  during  the 
war. 

It  might  seem  mere  temerity  to  question  the  soundness 
of  a  plan  of  resumption  emanating  from  such  a  source  as 
Senator  Sumner,  were  it  not  for  the  existence  of  these  in- 
disputable facts.  Have  we  any  reason  to  suppose  that  this 
same  history  will  not  repeat  itself  if  a  corresponding  con- 
dition of  things  is  inaugurated  ? 

The  proper  disposition  of  the  legal-tender  notes  seems 
to  be  a  conversion  of  them  into  some  sort  of  security, 
which  shall  be  only  a  means  of  investment,  which  shall  be 
merely  capital — a  security  which  shall  not  possess  the  dual 
and  mischievous  function  of  both  capital  and  Money. 

The  country  is  not  only,  at  the  present  time,  ready  for 
such  resumption,  but  the  interests  of  the  community  at  large, 
and  particularly  of  our  laboring,  salaried  and  agricultural 
classes,  who  have  so  long  submitted  to  this  gross  injustice, 
demand  that  further  postponement  of  a  full  resumption  of 
specie  payments  shall  not  be  allowed — that  at  least  the 
legal-tenders  in  actual  circulation  outside  of  the  amount 
held  as  a  reserve  fund  by  the  National  banks  shall  be  re- 
tired, and  thus  palliate,  if  not  entirely  remove,  the  evils 
which  are  greater  than  those  resulting  from  all  other  features 
of  our  present  governmental  policy,  save  that  of  our  civil 
service — namely,  those  of  our  redundant  paper  currency. 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  95 

CHAPTER   III. 

BANKS  AND  THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

THE  theory  and  uses  of  Money  in  the  abstract,  together 
with  the  present  status  and  relations  of  the  circu- 
lating medium  of  this  country,  constituted  the  sole  subjects 
of  investigation  of  the  preceding  chapters.  The  present 
one  will  be  devoted  to  a  consideration  of  the  agencies 
which  in  a  great  measure  effect  the  proper  distribution  of 
Money — namely,  Banks — and  a  discussion  of  the  National 
Banking  System  of  the  United  States.  For  this  purpose 
the  present  chapter  will  be  divided  into  two  divisions. 
The  first  will  treat  of  Banks  and  Banking  Business  in  Gen- 
eral ;  the  second  of  The  National  Banking  System. 

DIVISION  FIRST. 
BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS  IN  GENERAL. 

A  Necessary  Adjunct  of  Money  for  Purposes  of  Commerce — Their  Le- 
gitimate Office  to  Receive  and  Distribute  Money — Present  Offices 
— Deposit — Discount  and  Circulation — Deposit  Masses  Capital — A 
Means  for  Saving  the  Use  of  Money — Is  Deposit  a  Myth? — De- 
posits Seldom  Moved — Deposit  is  not  Money,  but  its  Substitute — 
Discount,  the  Purchase  of  Unmatured  Obligations — The  Fund  by 
which  the  Business  of  Discount  is  Worked — How  Discount  Operates 
in  Connection  with  Deposit — Circulation,  how  it  Differs  in  Nature 
from  Deposit  and  Discount — A  Measure  of  Public  instead  of  Pri- 
vate Economics — An  Act  of  Credit — The  Elements  of  the  Credit 
requisite  for  Circulation — Circulation  belongs  to  and  devolves 
upon  the  People — The  Doctrine  of  Convertibility — Is  it  Tenable  or 
Feasible? — Private  Hanking — Banking  in  History — The  Banks  of 
Venice,  Genoa  and  Amsterdam — Their  Origin  and  Operations. 

IN  a  prior  connection  we  had  occasion  to  lay  down  the 
law  which  God  has  attached  to  all  conditions  of  hu- 
man existence — a  law  which  indeed  places  mankind  but 


96  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

one  remove  from  Omnipotence — namely  :  That  man  to  live 
must  advance — that  life  is  progress,  that  repose  is  death. 
In  tracing  the  causes  and  origin  of  Money  we  incidentally 
cited  the  invention  of  this  commercial  agent  as  one  of  the 
grandest  proofs  and  illustrations  of  this  truth  which  history 
has  ever  afforded.  Not  only  another  proof  of  the  existence 
of  the  law,  but  also  another  forcible  illustration  of  its  con- 
stant application,  is  seen  in  the  device  of  those  peculiar  in- 
stitutions of  finance  which  mankind  has  designated  by  a 
title  indicative  of  both  their  office  and  character — the  im- 
pressive, solid  name  of  Bank.  Banking  institutions  are 
indeed  milestones  in  the  progress  of  civilization — indispen- 
sable adjuncts  of  even  the  most  primeval  commerce.  The 
law  of  human  progress  which  seized  upon  man  in  his  pri- 
mal pursuit  of  the  chase,  transformed  him  into  a  nomad, 
and  then,  leading  him  through  the  intervening  stage  of  a 
predial  existence,  opened  to  him  the  portals  of  commerce, 
and  bade  him  in  its  pursuit  reclaim  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth  to  civilization,  also  brought  to  his  assistance  in 
this  momentous  task  the  agency  of  metallic  Money.  The 
earlier  behests  of  commerce  are  to  a  certain  extent  ade- 
quately served  by  this  single  agent  of  exchange,  without 
the  establishment  of  any  especial  means  for  its  oversight 
and  proper  distribution ;  but  as  civilization  advances  the 
necessity  of  such  an  adjunct  to  commerce  soon  becomes  ap- 
parent. Money  as  an  agent  of  exchange  and  producer  of 
wealth  is  not  only  both  scattered  in  small  quantities  among 
many  holders  and  condensed  in  large  sums  in  the  hands 
of  successful  capitalists,  but  in  both  cases  remains  idle  and 
useless,  although  demand  for  its  service  in  the  field  of  pro- 
ductive industry  is  constant  and  worthy  of  satisfaction. 
Here,  then,  are  two  reciprocal  wants.  Money  seeks  em- 
ployment, and  industry  awaits  capital.  But  the  small  sums 
in  the  hands  of  the  many  holders  require  concretion,  so 
to  speak — wait  to  be  massed,  banked — before  they  can 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  97 

offer,  and  the  accumulation  of  the  capitalist  demands  secu- 
rity before  it  will  give,  assistance  to  industrial  needs.  An 
agency  which  can  give  such  security  is  necessary  to  gather 
up  these  metallic  idlers  from  their  loafing-ground  and  as- 
sign them  to  duty  in  the  attenuated  ranks  of  commerce. 
How  is  this  to  be  effected?  History  answers,  By  associa- 
tion— by  massing — in  short,  by  banking.  The  possession  of 
wealth,  as  already  seen,  gives  power  and  credit.  An  ap- 
plication of  this  truth  is  made  by  a  joinder  of  these  idle 
sums  of  Money  in  large  amounts,  by  an  association  of  these 
capitalists,  who  offer  to  collect  the  unemployed  Money  of 
community  and  assign  it  to  safe  and  remunerative  labor ; 
and  as  security  for  the  faithful  performance  of  their  trust 
pledge  their  accumulated  and  associated  wealth.  This  is 
the  birth  of  banking.  Let  us  follow  it  to  a  mature  life. 

From  the  foregoing  remarks  it  has  doubtless  become  ap- 
parent that  the  offices  of  legitimate  banking  are  to  receive 
and  distribute  Money.  The  receipt  of  Money  by  banking 
institutions  is  evidenced  by  a  certificate  to  that  effect — the 
distribution  of  it  by  taking  a  written  promise  of  the  dis- 
tributee to  repay  the  same  with  interest.  These  two  func- 
tions are  properly  designated  deposit  and  discount.  They 
will  be  discussed  at  length  hereafter;  in  this  connection 
they  are  only  referred  to  incidentally.  In  the  performance 
of  this  dual  function  banks  act  as  equalizers  of  the  supply 
and  demand  for  Money.  They  constitute  an  interceding 
agent,  so  to  speak,  between  capital  and  its  borrowers,  dis- 
pelling the  doubt  and  insuring  the  safety  of  the  former  on 
the  one  hand,  responding  to  the  wants  and  necessities  of 
the  latter  on  the  other,  and  thus  keep  the  otherwise  idle 
hoards  in  constant  circulation  in  the  unremitting  service  of 
productive  industry.  They  are,  in  short,  the  fiscal  agents 
of  the  mercantile  world. 

The  efficiency  of  banks  in  the  service  of  commerce  by 
the  mere  collection  and  distribution  of  metallic  Money 
»  E 


98  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

would  be  very  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory.  Whenever 
commercial  pursuits  assume  proportions  of  the  slightest 
magnitude  they  demand  very  frequent  exchanges  of  the 
tokens  which  effect  the  purposes  of  sale.  To  consummate 
every  transaction  of  the  business  world  by  an  actual  ma- 
nipulation and  transfer  of  metallic  Money  would  be  wholly 
impracticable — yes,  more,  entirely  impossible — unless  com- 
mercial pursuits  were  restricted  to  the  narrow  limits  of 
what  could  only  be  termed,  so  to  speak,  a  refined  bar- 
barism. The  use  of  metallic  Money  as  a  sole  circulating 
medium  is,  in  fact,  a  conclusive  badge  of  barbarism  and 
ignorance.  It  is  a  denial  of  that  faith  in  man  for  man  with- 
out which  neither  commerce  nor  civilization  can  emerge 
from  the  swaddling-clothes  of  a  society  which  makes  the 
needs  of  physical  subsistence  the  ultimate  measure  and  limit 
of  traffic.  It,  in  short,  ignores  credit.  This  inefficiency 
of  incipient  banking  leads  to-  the  adoption  of  a  system 
whereby  these  fiscal  agents  of  the  commercial  world  hold 
metallic  Money  as  a  pledge  of  their  solvency,  and  issue 
their  promises  to  pay  Money  on  demand  as  a  substitute 
for  its  circulation.  The  theory  and  basis  of  this  custom  is 
credit,  and  banking  is  thus  traced  to  the  assumption  of  a 
third  function — namely,  circulation.  The  further  line  of 
discussion  of  this  subject  will  be  devoted  to  a  separate  con- 
sideration of  these  three  present  offices  of  banking,  in  the 
following  order :  I.  Deposit;  II.  Discount;  and  III.  Cir- 
culation. 

I.  DEPOSIT. 

Deposit  consists,  as  already  seen,  in  gathering  together — 
massing — banking — the  unemployed  capital  of  the  country 
for  proper  distribution  through  the  various  avenues  of  pro- 
ductive industry.  Deposit,  in  the  abstract,  moreover  as- 
sumes two  forms.  The  idle  capital  of  community  may  be 
massed  or  banked  together  either  by  an  actual  placing  of 
metallic  Money  in  the  custody  of  banking  institutions,  or 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  99 

by  giving  them  the  care  and  keeping  of  the  various  certifi- 
cates of  indebtedness,  bills  of  exchange,  promissory  notes 
and  convertible  or  inconvertible  currency  which  circulate 
as  substitutes  for  specie.  By  far  the  greater  portion  of 
deposits  are  of  this  latter  character.  Community  at  large, 
so  far  as  its  needs  of  a  medium  of  exchange  are  concerned, 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes — the  mercantile  or  com- 
mercial, and  the  consuming  class.  These  two  classes,  more- 
over, comparatively  speaking,  make  use  of  two  distinct 
species  of  circulating  medium.  The  latter,  in  supplying 
their  daily  and  petty  wants  of  physical  subsistence,  use  the 
circulating  equivalents  of  specie  or  a  substituted  currency, 
but  the  former,  in  effecting  the  transposition  of  the  aggre- 
gate products  of  productive  industry — in  supplying  com- 
merce with  motive-power — resort  to  the  circulation  of  the 
various  evidences  of  indebtedness  above  named.  Many 
individuals,  it  is  true,  may  and  do  belong  to  both  of  these 
classes  of  community,  but  in  each  respective  position  they 
make  use  of  these  respective  means  of  a  circulating  medium. 
As  already  indicated,  the  wheels  of  business  would  be 
blocked  and  commerce  confined  to  its  natal  cradle  if 
actual  exchanges  of  Money  or  currency  concluded  every 
business  transaction;  and,  as  already  noticed,  moreover,  the 
disenthrallment  of  community  from  such  a  rude  species  of 
commerce  is  one  of  the  boundary-lines  between  civiliza- 
tion and  barbarism.  The  business  world  buy  and  sell 
sometimes  "on  time"  and  again  "for  cash,"  as  occasion 
and  circumstances  may  require ;  and  in  both  instances  not 
a  dollar  of  Money  or  substituted  currency  is  frequently 
employed  in  the  transaction.  In  case  of  "time"  transac- 
tions the  same  are  concluded,  either  in  the  first  instance 
by  a  promissory  note,  which,  after  often  traversing  almost 
countless  avenues  of  the  business  world,  knocks  at  the  bank 
door  of  the  maker  at  maturity  for  payment,  and  is  canceled 
by  a  mere  transfer  of  dei>osit,  or  they  remain  open  till  the 


100          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

stated  time  for  payment  is  at  hand,  when  the  bank  check  or 
draft,  by  another  mere  transfer  of  deposit,  completes  the 
contract  of  purchase  and  sale.  This  is  credit — faith  be- 
tween man  and  man  in  their  ability  to  execute  their  con- 
tracts, and  belief  that  this  ability  is  supplemented  by  hon- 
est intent.  From  the  foregoing  propositions  it  appears  that 
deposit  dispenses  with  the  use  of  Money.  This  is,  indeed, 
one  of  the  principal  offices  of  deposit,  and  will  now  receive 
consideration. 

The  proposition  that  deposit  constitutes  a  means  for 
saving  the  use  of  Money  should  be  also  coupled  with  the 
statement — which  is,  in  fact,  a  logical  deduction  from  such 
proposition — that  deposit  is  not  itself  Money,  but  a  mere 
substitute  for  such  a  medium  of  exchange.  A  demon- 
stration of  this  deductive  assertion  will  afford  sufficient 
proof  of  the  major  proposition.  Let  the  course  of  dealing 
among  merchants  be  again  taken  .as  an  illustration.  A 
buys  of  B  $1000  worth  of  goods,  to  be  paid  for  at  the  ex- 
piration of  three  months.  The  contract  is  concluded  upon 
delivery  of  the  goods,  by  A  giving  B  a  promissory  note 
for  the  amount,  the  maturity  of  which  is  fixed  at  the  date 
above  mentioned.  B  will  place  this  note  with  his  banker 
by  way  of  discount  (to  be  examined  hereafter),  and  the 
amount  of  the  proceeds  will  be  placed  to  the  credit 
of  B  on  the  books  of  the  bank  as  a  deposit.  This  deposit 
is  not  Money ;  it  is  merely  the  promise  of  A  to  pay  money. 
Neither  does  the  bank  pass  any  money  to  B  in  the  process 
of  discount ;  it  merely  makes  an  entry  on  its  books  giving 
B  the  right  to  draw  checks  upon  the  bank  for  the  sum  ;  and 
when  B  draws  his  check  or  checks  for  such  sum,  in  three 
cases  out  of  five  no  Money  will  be  passed  from  hand  to 
hand  in  the  process  of  payment,  but  the  same  be  effected 
by  a  mere  transfer  of  the  deposit — of  the  right  to  draw — 
on  the  books  of  the  bank  from  B  to  the  party  in  whose 
favor  the  check  runs.  In  this  way  the  proceeds  of  the 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  IOI 

$1000  note  of  A  will  be  drawn  against — the  deposit  will  be 
transferred — scores  of  times  before  the  matured  obligation 
calls  at  the  bank  of  A  for  redemption.  Its  avails  will  in 
the  interim  have  served  the  purposes  of  perhaps  a  hundred 
transactions.  The  same  is  true  of  sales  for  cash,  except 
that  the  number  of  transfers  will  not  usually  be  so  many,  on 
account  of  the  fact  that  the  check  given  for  payment  of  a 
cash  purchase  is  payable  on  demand,  and  will  consequently 
usually  reach  the  bank  of  the  drawer  sooner  than  an  obli- 
gation the  maturity  of  which  is  deferred.  The  truth  of 
the  foregoing  is  also  substantiated  by  a  recurrence  to  the 
discussion  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  treatise,  where  the 
proposition  was  maintained  that  the  amount  of  Money 
needed  for  commercial  purposes  was  based  upon  the  rela- 
tive rapidity  with  which  Money  and  commodities  circulate. 
The  same  principle  precisely  is  here  involved,  the  only 
difference  being  that  we  are  here  speaking  of  commercial 
substitutes  for  Money,  instead  of  Money  itself  as  the  ex- 
changing agent. 

In  the  absence  of  further  investigation,  the  questions 
naturally  arise  in  this  connection,  Is  the  system  of  deposit 
entirely  a  myth  ?  does  it  assume  to  mass — to  bank — Money, 
when  in  fact  it  only  grasps  the  shadow  ?  is  the  whole 
scheme  a  visionary  one,  a  constant  make-shift,  a  stupendous 
fraud?  By  no  means.  Its  basis  is  credit.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  in  a  prior  part  of  this  treatise  we  laid 
down  and  elucidated  the  proposition  that  the  possession  of 
wealth  always  gives  to  the  holder  a  purchasing  power  far 
greater  than  is  warranted  by  the  actual  amount  of  his  imme- 
diate possessions.  His  capital  consists,  in  other  words,  of 
the  combined  amount  of  his  wealth  and  this  credit  power 
which  springs  from  its  ownership.  It  is  the  operation  of 
this  power  of  credit  in  three  forms  which  explains  the 
law  and  system  of  deposit;  and  as  this  credit  power  mani- 
fests itself  in  three  distinct  and  separate,  yet  confluent, 


IO2         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

channels,  so  has  it  three  distinct  and  separate  yet  associated 
bases.  The  working  basis  of  the  depositor,  whereby  he 
places  his  drafts,  checks,  notes  and  evidences  of  indebted- 
ness with  his  bank,  and  by  the  means  of  discount  (to  be 
hereafter  explained)  obtains  a  right  to  draw  on  the  bank 
for  their  proceeds,  is  the  amount  of  his  actual  and  credit 
capital.  The  basis  of  the  bank,  whereby  it  insures  to  the 
depositor  the  safety  of  his  deposits  until  he  shall  draw  his 
check  against  the  same,  is  the  actual  amount  of  banking 
capital  and  extent  of  banking  credit ;  and  the  common 
basis  of  the  business  of  both  the  bank  and  individual,  with 
the  qualification  below  named,  is  the  amount  of  circulating 
medium  of  the  country.  The  bank  will  not  discount 
beyond  what  it  considers  the  depositor  can  protect  by 
means  of  his  actual  capital  and  credit  power ;  the  depositor 
will  not  entrust  the  bank  with  his  securities  to  a  greater 
extent  than  he  believes  the  bank,  by  means  of  its  capital 
and  credit  power,  can  insure  ;  and  the  amount  of  the  com- 
bined business  of  the  depositor  and  the  banker  is  measured 
by  the  amount  of  actual  or  substituted  circulating  medium, 
with  a  due  regard  to  the  relative  rapidity  with  which 
Money  (or  its  substitutes)  and  commodities  circulate. 
These  bases  are  all  separate  and  distinct,  and  yet  conjoint, 
for,  both  separate  and  joint,  they  are  measured  by  the 
aggregate  amount  of  the  capital  of  the  country. 

It  has  incidentally  appeared  in  this  discussion  that  de- 
posits are  rarely  moved  in  payment  of  the  checks  or  bills 
that  are  drawn  against  them.  This  is  perfectly  apparent  if 
we  make,  for  illustration,  the  hypothesis  that  there  is  but 
one  bank  in  the  city  of  New  York,  thus  compelling  the  en- 
tire business  community  of  that  city  to  transact  their  bank- 
ing business  at  this  single  institution.  Under  this  condi- 
tion of  things  it  is  at  once  seen  that  all  checks  drawn  for 
payment  of  city  debts  upon  this  single  banking  institution 
would  require  no  actual  transfer  of  the  deposit  unless  the 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  1 03 

payee  of  the  check  was  not  a  depositor  of  the  bank ;  at 
least,  as  between  all  depositors,  no  such  transfer  would  be 
required.  A  would  draw  his  check  for  $1000  in  favor  of 
B,  and  A's  account  at  the  bank  would  be  debited  and  B's 
credited  with  this  sum.  A  transfer  of  a  deposit  would  only 
occur  when  the  payee  was  not  a  depositor.  This  principle, 
with  the  single  qualification  where  the  payee  of  a  check  is 
not  a  depositor  at  any  bank,  applies,  with  but  a  yery  little 
limitation,  however  great  may  be  the  number  of  these  in- 
stitutions. A  draws  his  check  in  favor  of  B  for  $1000  on 
the  Union  Bank  of  New  York.  B  is  a  depositor  at  the 
Traders'  Bank  of  the  same  city.  Instead  of  presenting  A's 
check  at  the  Union  Bank  and  demanding  the  money  there- 
for, B  will  deposit  it  in  the  Traders'  Bank,  and  when  this 
institution  demands  payment  of  the  same  from  the  Union 
Bank,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  latter  will  also  have  a 
check  on  the  former  which  it  has  taken  on  deposit  from  a 
customer,  and  only  the  difference  between  the  two  checks 
requires  payment ;  and  for  this,  in  the  greater  number  of 
instances,  the  debtor  bank  will  give  a  check  in  settlement, 
so  that  the  greater  portion  of  the  checks  and  bills  drawn 
against  deposits  are  paid  by  mere  entries  on  the  books  of 
the  bank.  This  is  illustrated  by  the  report  of  the  New 
York  Clearing-House  for  1869,  heretofore  cited,  where 
it  is  seen  that  the  aggregate  amount  of  daily  settlements 
between  the  banks  of  New  York  for  that  year  amounted  to 
$125,000,000,  and  that  $120,000,000  of  these  settlements 
were  daily  made  by  this  means  of  offset,  leaving  only 
$5,000,000  to  be  actually  passed  from  hand  to  hand. 

In  conclusion,  then,  deposit  is  not  Money,  but  a  substi- 
tute for  it.  The  same  is  rarely  ever  transferred  in  payment 
of  checks  and  bills  drawn  against  it,  but  such  payment  is 
made  by  mere  entries  upon  the  books  of  the  bank.  The 
office  of  deposit  is  to  gather  together  the  loose,  idle  capital 
of  the  country — to  mass,  bank  it,  and  assign  it  to  remune- 


IO4          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

rative  labor  in  the  field  of  productive  industry,  and  in  so 
doing  to  increase,  by  the  operation  of  the  credit  power, 
heretofore  explained,  the  extent  of  its  working  capacity. 
In  the  performance  of  this  compound  office  deposit  hus- 
bands circulation,  and  so  economises  the  use  of  Money. 

II.   DISCOUNT. 

The  principles  upon  which  discount  rests  are  so  intimately 
interwoven  with,  and  so  analogous  to,  those  which  form  the 
basis  of  deposit  that  this  topic  will  not,  by  itself,  receive 
an  extended  discussion.  Deposit  and  discount  go  hand  in 
hand.  Through  the  agency  of  the  first,  banking  institutions 
marshal  the  straggling  hoards  of  capital  into  an  unbroken 
line,  and  by  means  of  the  second  employ  this  moneyed 
force  in  the  execution  of  the  work  which  constitutes  the 
sole  legitimate  source  of  banking  profit.  The  former  is  a 
preparatory,  the  latter  a  terminative  task.  The  one  is  a 
receptive,  the  other  a  creative  agent.  Discount  is  the  pur- 
chase of  unmatured  obligations.  The  sum  paid  represents 
their  present  worth,  and  this  is  measured  by  the  amount 
stamped  upon  the  face  of  such  obligations,  less  the  legal  or 
agreed  interest  for  the  time  intervening  between  purchase 
and  maturity.  This  interest,  which  springs  into  existence 
from  the  process  of  discount,  as  already  indicated,  is  the 
sole  remuneration  for  legitimate  banking  labor.  The  fund 
with  which  the  business  of  discount  is  worked  depends  upon 
the  character  of  the  law  under  which  banking  institutions 
are  organized.  If  the  banking  business  of  a  country  is  con- 
trolled by  the  General  Government,  the  legitimate  fund 
which  keeps  the  wheels  of  discount  in  motion  is  confined, 
for  the  most  part,  to  the  bank  deposits.  The  entire  or 
greater  portion  of  the  movable  capital  of  banking  institu- 
tions organized  in  this  manner  is  almost  invariably  in  the 
possession  of  Government  as  a  protection  against  loss  which 
may  result  from  i:s  guarantee  of  the  circulation.  This,  in 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  1 05 

a  partial  manner,  is  the  case  under  our  present  National 
banking  system,  as  will  hereafter  appear.  If  the  banking 
business  of  a  country,  however,  is  not  controlled  by  the 
General  Government,  the  discount  fund  is  usually  measured 
by  the  aggregate  amount  of  capital  and  deposits,  for  in  this 
case  the  banks  usually  issue  and  control  their  own  circulation, 
and  hence  hold  their  entire  capital,  while  in  the  former  in- 
stance, as  already  seen,  this  state  of  things  does  not  exist. 
In  both  cases  the  reserve  fund  held  by  banks  for  the  conver- 
sion of  circulation  is  sometimes  trenched  upon,  perhaps 
frequently,  to  increase  the  discount  fund.  This,  however, 
is  not  only  illegal,  but  absolutely  fraudulent. 

From  the  foregoing  remarks  in  reference  to  the  fund  with 
which  the  business  of  discount  is  worked,  the  inference 
must  not  be  drawn  that  invariably,  where  banking  is  a 
monopoly,  this  fund  consists  solely  of  deposits,  and  where 
it  is  free,  of  both  deposits  and  capital.  This  does  not 
follow  as  a  necessary  deduction  from  the  preceding  para- 
graph. The  banking  business  of  the  United  States  at  the 
present  time  is  a  monopoly  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because, 
in  the  abstract,  it  is  under  control  of  Federal  authority; 
and  second,  because  the  amount  of  circulation  is  limited. 
Yet  the  business  might  still  be  retained  under  Federal  con- 
trol, with  no  limit  set  upon  the  amount  of  circulation,  and 
it  would  then  be,  in  one  sense,  free,  and  in  another  a  mo- 
nopoly. Still,  although  in  one  sense  free,  the  Government 
would  hold  the  banking  capital  to  the  same  extent  as  now, 
as  it  would  still  be  responsible  for  the  redemption  of  the 
circulation,  and  the  discount  fund  would  thus  continue  to 
be  measured  by  the  amount  of  deposits.  Again,  the  bank- 
ing business  of  London  is  a  monopoly,  but,  unlike  our 
own,  a  monopoly  in  the  hands  of  a  single  institution  instead 
of  the  Government,  and  the  Hank  of  England,  although  a 
monopoly,  both  holds  its  own  capital  and  issues  its  own 
circulation,  whereby  the  fund  which  can  be  drawn  upon  for 

E2 


106         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

discount  5s  made  up  of  the  combined  sum  of  capital  and 
deposits. 

As  deposits  are  merely  temporary,  simply  placed  in  bank 
subject  to  the  call,  check  or  draft  of  the  depositor,  it  may 
seem  inexplicable  how  a  banking  institution  can  discount 
from  this  fund  with  safety.  In  other  words,  if  the  deposits 
are  liable  to  be  drawn  out  at  any  moment,  in  toto,  what  real 
basis  is  there  upon  which  to  work  the  business  of  discount  ? 
It  is  found  in  the  fact  that,  although  the  gross  amount  of 
deposits  are  liable  to  be  drawn  out,  it  is  in  no  way  prob- 
able that  such  an  event  will  happen,  and  experience  proves 
that  an  average  amount  will  always  remain  uncalled  for, 
barring  war  or  financial  disaster.  The  moneyed  wants  and 
resources  of  the  community  are  constantly  changing,  and 
although  one  class  of  depositors  may  keep  a  very  active 
account  and  draw  very  close  upon  their  balance,  another 
class,  with  greater  means  and  less  extended  necessities,  will 
keep  a  constant  deposit  of  about  a  given  sum.  This  average 
amount  of  deposit  constitutes  the  discount  fund,  and  is 
almost  exactly  appreciable  by  any  institution  of  established 
business.  The  amount  of  deposits  in  the  New  York  City 
banks  has  amounted  for  the  last  two  years,  upon  an  average, 
to  about  $200,000,000,  and  this  average  has  not  varied 
more  than  five  per  cent,  during  that  period.  An  incidental 
statement  may  be  made  in  this  connection,  that  the  aggre- 
gate amount  of  deposits  in  the  United  States  at  the  close  of 
the  present  year  (1871)  is  about  $600,000,000.  From  the 
foregoing  remarks,  which  have  shown  the  nature  and  extent 
of  a  discount  fund,  it  is  perfectly  evident,  without  discus- 
sion, that  it  is  no  part  of  a  legitimate  discount  business  to 
furnish  community  with  permanent  capital  for  business  pur- 
poses. In  other  words,  it  is  not  the  office  of  discount  to 
make  loans  upon  long  time — to  purchase  obligations  whose 
maturity  is  long  deferred.  This  is  the  business  of  savings 
banks  and  similar  institutions,  not  here  under  discussion. 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  IO/ 

III.  CIRCULATION. 

It  has  been  incidentally,  if  not  directly,  asserted  in  this 
discussion  that  the  issue  of  circulation  constitutes  no  part 
of  the  business  of  legitimate  banking.  As  has  been  seen 
in  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  treatise,  the  charac- 
ter and  management  of  a  circulating  medium  are  fraught 
with  results,  either  for  good  or  evil,  incomparable  to  any 
save  those  which  spring  from  the  fundamental  organism  of 
government.  Deposit  and  discount  are  mere  agents  for 
gathering  and  distributing  capital.  Their  office  is  simply  a 
ministerial  one,  and  the  duties  of  the  same  are  simple  and 
well  defined.  Their  conduct  can  militate  but  very  slightly 
against  the  interests  of  community,  unless  characterized 
by  inexcusable  ignorance  or  actual  fraud.  They  act  in  a 
mere  executive  capacity,  and,  looking  at  them  as  abstract 
entities,  they  are  enveloped  with  no  mystery  and  are  un- 
clouded with  any  of  the  occult  surroundings  of  science  or 
art.  They  are  plain  in  theory,  simple  in  practice,  and 
bear  upon  the  well-being  of  either  commerce  or  individuals 
only  in  the  most  restricted  manner  as  to  either  time,  person 
or  place.  They  are  indispensable  adjuncts  of  business  pur- 
suits, it  is  true,  but  their  existence,  instead  of  being  inde- 
pendent, is  entirely  dependent,  and  presupposes  that  of  a 
healthy  commerce,  which  is  in  turn  an  exponent  of  a  well- 
organized  and  effective  circulating  medium.  Deposit  and 
discount,  in  short,  are  mere  conventional,  and  in  no  sense 
political,  institutions.  They  exist,  as  it  were,  by  contract 
— simple  errand-boys  in  the  employment  of  circulation. 

The  issue  of  credit  Money,  however — of  circulation — is 
an  office  of  entirely  different  import.  It  is  essentially  a 
measure  of  public  economics.  There  is  not  an  interest  of 
community  or  the  individual  which  is  not  dependent  upon 
the  proper  discharge  of  this  office  for  maintenance  and  suc- 
cess. All-powerful  as  is  the  exercise  of  this  function  for 


IO8          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

either  good  or  evil  upon  commercial  pursuits,  embracing 
as  it  does  not  merely  restricted  portions  of  community  or 
classes  of  men  in  its  operation,  creating  as  it  does  a  me- 
dium of  exchange  the  sole  constituent  essence  of  which  is 
credit — and  a  symbol  of  credit,  moreover,  which  is  to  com- 
mand the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  entire  public — the 
issue  of  circulation  is  purely  and  peculiarly  an  act  of  a  po- 
litical character,  and,  for  reasons  foreshadowed  in  this,  and 
stated  in  full  in  the  succeeding  paragraph,  one  which  prop- 
erly devolves  upon  the  people  at  large,  upon  the  supreme 
power,  upon  the  General  Government. 

The  single  fact  that  the  issue  of  circulation  is  an  act  of 
credit  develops  sufficient  reason  for  the  assignment  of  this 
office  to  one  general,  responsible  head.  This  circulation — 
this  credit  Money — seeking,  ay  more,  demanding,  as  it 
does,  the  confidence  and  adoption  of  the  entire  commu- 
nity, should  consequently  possess  all  the  elements  of  the 
most  approved  credit  known  to  commercial  usage.  One 
of  the  most  important  of  these  elements  is,  that  the  accred- 
ited party  should  be  well  known  throughout  the  entire  ter- 
ritory wherein  its  promises  circulate  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
change. The  identity  of  such  a  source  of  issue,  indeed, 
should  be  so  notorious  (using  the  word  in  its  non-prejudi- 
cial sense)  as  to  be  within  the  knowledge  of  the  humblest 
peasant  or  most  menial  artisan.  Coupled  with  or  attached 
to  this  notoriety  should  be  found,  as  other  elements  of  credit, 
the  characteristics  of  favor,  reliability  and  strength.  Its 
good  name,  in  fact,  should  be  a  synonym  of  virtue,  its  in- 
tegrity a  perfect  exponent  of  truth,  and  its  stability  a  par- 
agon of  human  endurance.  These  elements  of  credit  must 
necessarily  attach  to  every  agency  which  invites  universal 
faith  in  the  purity  and  sacredness  of  its  public  acts.  Such 
an  agency  is  circulation,  and  the  public  presupposes,  in  its 
existence,  that  of  the  various  characteristics  above  men- 
tioned. 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  I  Op 

Another  important  element  of  credit  for  a  medium  of 
exchange — for  circulation — is,  that  the  issuing  source  should 
be  sole,  single  and  undivided.  This  is  the  argument  of  uni- 
formity. Neither  the  commercial  nor  consuming  world,  in 
their  all-absorbing  work — the  one  of  maintaining  solvency 
and  the  other  of  securing  means  of  subsistence — wish  to  be 
hampered  with  the  task  of  discriminating  between  the  cur- 
rent value  of  competing  bills  of  credit.  Such  discrimina- 
tion, so  far  as  accuracy  is  concerned,  is,  in  fact,  impossible 
in  countries  which  have  a  wide  extent  of  territory,  and  the 
most  acute  observer  will  often  find  his  judgment  thwarted 
and  purse  depleted  when  obliged  to  make  use  of  diverse 
forms  of  a  circulating  medium.  This  thought  will  find  a 
more  extended  expression  in  our  commendation  and  crit- 
icism of  the  National  Banking  System.  These  arguments 
of  identity  and  responsibility  on  the  one  hand  and  uni- 
formity on  the  other  are  supported  by  many  historical  il- 
lustrations. The  circulation  of  London  and  vicinity,  for 
instance,  although  it  does  not  emanate  direct  from  Govern- 
ment, is  issued  by  one  colossal  institution,  the  creature  of 
Government,  and  one  which  is  nearly  as  old,  and  certainly 
as  stable,  as  the  English  Government  itself.  It  presents 
the  combined  advantages  of  strength  and  uniformity.  So 
also  with  the  ancient  Banks  of  Amsterdam,  Genoa  and 
Venice.  These  institutions  will  all  receive  a  more  ex- 
tended notice  hereafter.  The  disadvantages  of  a  diverse 
system  of  circulation,  moreover,  are  instanced  by  our  old 
State  banking  institutions.  The  evils  of  that  system  in 
these  respects  require  no  explanation  or  comment.  They 
are  within  the  knowledge  of  the  entire  community.  They 
will,  however,  receive  a  little  additional  notice  in  the  sec- 
ond division  of  this  chapter. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  the  issue  of  circula- 
tion devolves  upon  the  people  at  large,  upon  the  supreme 
power,  upon  the  General  Government.  It  not  only  de- 
10 


1 10         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

volves  upon  this  power  as  a  peculiar,  political  duty — it  be- 
longs to  it  as  a  species  of  property.  The  fundamental  idea 
of  circulation  is  that  it  shall  promote  the  public  conveni- 
ence. It  is  a  substitute  for  metallic  Money,  and  is  designed 
to  redound  to  the  good  of  the  entire  community,  equally 
and  indivisible.  Community,  moreover,  is  compelled  to 
give  it  respect  and  confidence,  to  place  credit  in  its  repre- 
sentative value.  As  a  substitute  of  metallic  Money  for 
universal  convenience,  as  an  evidence  of  credit  which  the 
entire  population  is  forced  to  respect,  the  issue  of  circula- 
tion and  the  profits  which  accrue  therefrom  belong  to  the 
people  at  large,  to  the  General  Government.  In  other 
words,  the  issue  of  circulation  should  cost  the  people  of 
any  country  no  more  than  the  bare  expense  of  the  labor 
and  material  which  compose  it  and  its  necessary  super- 
vision. 

In  the  foregoing  remarks  as  to  the  proper  source  of  issue 
of  circulation  the  principal  requisites  of  the  same  have  in- 
cidentally appeared.  A  little  additional  comment  upon 
this  point  will,  however,  now  be  made.  The  necessity  of 
convertibility  in  respect  to  circulation  will  first  engage  at- 
tention. Convertibility  as  a  requisite  for  circulation  pre- 
sents itself  in  two  aspects — one  initiate,  the  other  consum- 
mate. The  latter  is  consistent  in  both  theory  and  practice, 
and  denotes  solvency,  while  the  former  is  under  all  systems 
almost  all  theory,  so  to  speak,  and  practically  true  only  to 
a  certain  extent.  The  latter,  per  se,  is  an  absolute  <neces- 
sity ;  the  former  only  that  it  shall  be  a  true  representative 
of  the  existence  of  the  latter.  In  other  words,  solvency 
must  always  be  assured — convertibility  only  to  the  extent 
of  denoting  solvency.  The  history  of  the  entire  banking 
business  of  the  world,  literally  speaking,  contains  no  record 
of  absolute  convertibility  in  the  first  instance.  Converti- 
bility in  the  abstract  signifies  a  specie  dollar  in  the  hands 
of  the  source  of  issue  for  every  paper  one  in  circulation, 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  1 1  I 

and  yet,  as  already  stated,  such  a  condition  of  things  has 
never  existed.  The  largest  specie  reserve  ever  held  by 
banking  institutions  for  the  conversion  of  their  circulation 
has  rarely,  if  ever,  exceeded  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  same. 
There  has  never  been  a  day  in  the  whole  history  of  circu- 
lation when  specie  payments  could  have  been  maintained 
if  conversion  of  the  entire  note  issue  in  gold  and  silver 
had  been  demanded,  and  hence  it  is  that  in  all  seasons  of 
financial  disaster  specie  payments  are  almost  immediately 
suspended.  Convertibility,  then,  practically  speaking, 
merely  denotes  solvency,  and  the  question  is  pertinent  in 
this  connection,  With  solvency  assured,  is  convertibility  a 
necessity  to  any  extent  ? 

This  question  pushes  our  general  inquiry  into  an  exami- 
nation of  the  bases  of  circulation.  These  are  two  in  num 
ber,  moral  and  material,  namely — credit  and  capital.  The 
first  was  referred  to  at  length  in  the  chapter  upon  Money 
and  Currency,  and  has  received  frequent  and  unavoidable 
mention  in  our  subsequent  discussion,  for  it  is  the  nether 
millstone,  so  to  speak,  of  the  whole  science  and  art  of 
banking.  The  last  is  a  necessary  adjunct  of  the  first — the 
substance — the  pledge — which  circulation  asserts  is  in  the 
possession  of  the  issuing  agency.  This  material  basis  of 
banking,  capital,  always  exceeds  the  amount  of  circulation, 
and  is  consequently  adequate  security  for  the  redemption 
of  the  same  if  properly  guarded.  Payment  of  deposits, 
moreover,  is  assured  by  collaterals  held  as  security  for  loans. 
What  need,  then,  of  primal  convertibility?  The  question 
may  not  be  free  from  intricacy,  but  looking  at  the  matter 
from  this  standpoint,  convertibility  in  the  initiate,  in  the 
first  instance,  unless  it  can  be  absolutely  adequate  to  absorb 
the  entire  issue,  seems  to  be,  in  most  cases  at  least,  of  little 
comparative  importance.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  of  convertibility  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that 
it  never  has  existed,  only  to  the  extent  of  adding  about 


1 1 2         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

twenty-five  per  cent,  to  the  capital  which  ultimately  assures 
redemption — that,  practically  speaking,  it  is  a  myth,  and 
with  capital  in  excess  of  circulation,  deposited  with  outside 
agencies  in  trust  for  the  redemption  of  the  same,  it  is  abso- 
lutely and  entirely  unnecessary. 

The  perfect  absurdity  of  all  the  convertibility  that  has 
ever  existed  is  made  more  apparent  by  the  fact  that  deposits, 
in  addition  to  circulation,  are  by  force  of  law,  as  well  as 
banking  usage,  payable  in  specie  or  other  lawful  money. 
On  the  supposition  that  specie  payments  exist  in  this 
country  at  the  present  time,  let  us  see  what  a  mockery  con- 
vertibility would  be  in  this  instance.  The  circulation  of 
the  country  is  $325,000,000,  the  amount  of  deposits 
$600,000,000,  making  a  total  of  $925,000,000.  The  re- 
serve for  the  payment  and  conversion  of  this  aggregate 
amount  of  deposit  and  circulation,  under  our  present  bank- 
ing system,  would  be,  by  average,  twenty  per  cent,  of 
$925,000,000 — namely,  $185,000,000.  How  far  this  would 
operate  to  convert  and  pay  $925,000,000  of  circulation  and 
deposit  requires  no  additional  statement.  The  banking 
capital  would  be  the  ultimate  resort  in  both  instances. 

It  has  been  maintained,  in  this  discussion  of  the  subject 
of  circulation,  that  the  issue  of  the  same  constitutes  no 
portion  of  the  business  of  legitimate  banking.  Before  dis- 
missing this  topic  a  slight  allusion  will  be  made  to  the 
system  of  private  banking  as  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of 
this  theory.  The  business  of  private  banking,  which  con- 
sists of  receiving  money  on  deposit  and  discounting  com- 
mercial paper,  has  been  conducted  in  England  for  a  long 
period.  It  is  mostly  confined  to  the  city  of  London  and 
vicinity,  and  owes  its  origin  to  the  fact  that  the  Bank  of 
England,  by  virtue  of  a  special  act  of  Parliament,  holds  a 
monopoly  of  the  issue  of  circulation  within  the  city  limits 
and  sixty-five  miles  of  the  surrounding  country.  These 
English  bankers  have  conducted  their  business  under  the 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  113 

two  forms  of  individual  and  associated  management.  The 
first  form  is  simply  that  of  an  ordinary  firm  or  copartner- 
ship, and  embraces  the  larger  London  capitalists.  The 
second  is  the  well-known  principle  of  association,  by 
which,  under  a  general  act  of  Parliament,  individuals  put 
their  separate  capital  into  a  common,  aggregate  fund,  and 
incorporate  themselves  into  joint-stock  companies  for  the 
purposes  of  private  banking.  The  difference  between  the 
two  species  of  management  is  that  which  constitutes  the 
distinctive  feature — the  very  germ  and  essence  indeed — of 
the  widely-extended  and  much-abused  principle  of  associ- 
ation. Under  the  individual  form  of  a  firm  or  copartner- 
ship the  liability  of  the  members  for  losses  which  may 
result  to  the  community  from  their  neglect,  ignorance, 
fraud  or  mismanagement  is  unlimited,  and  attaches,  not 
only  to  the  joint  fund  of  the  copartnership,  but  also  to  all 
the  separate  property  of  each  individual  member;  while 
under  the  associated  form  of  a  joint-stock  company  the 
liability  of  the  members  is  fixed,  and  is  measured  either  by 
the  amount  of  corporate  property  or  by  this  joint  fund, 
together  with  the  separate  property  of  each  individual  mem- 
ber in  a  sum  equal  to  the  value  of  his  stock.  The  business 
of  private  banking  in  London  under  this  associated  form 
of  management  has  assumed  proportions  of  tremendous 
importance.  The  amount  of  private  deposits  of  these  joint 
stock  companies  has,  at  many  times  within  the  last  ten 
years,  and  we  think  continually,  largely  exceeded  those  of 
the  Bank  of  England,  and  though  they  have  never  issued  a 
dollar  of  circulation,  their  business  has  yielded  a  profit  of 
from  five  to  fifteen,  and  even  twenty  per  cent. 

Private  banking  in  the  United  States,  comparatively 
speaking,  is  still  in  its  infancy.  In  New  York,  Philadel- 
phia, Boston  and  some  other  of  our  larger  cities  it  has  been 
greatly  extended  since  1860,  and  a  few  firms  have  achieved 
both  an  American  and  European  reputation  second  to  none 
10  • 


114         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  our  regular  banking  organizations.  The  business  in  this 
country,  however,  is  for  the  most  part  at  least,  and  we 
think  entirely,  conducted  under  the  individual  form  of 
management — by  firms  and  copartnerships.  The  legisla- 
tures of  most  of  our  States  have  enacted  general  laws  under 
which  individuals  may  incorporate  themselves  into  joint- 
stock  associations,  with  limited  liability,  for  the  prosecution 
of  nearly  every  kind  of  industrial  pursuits ;  but  we  think 
no  general  State  statute  exists  whereby  individuals  may 
organize  in  this  manner  for  private  banking.  This  is  cer- 
tainly true  of  New  York  and  our  principal  commercial 
States,  and  unless  some  means  can  be  devised  to  correct 
and  prevent  the  abuses  of  association  which  exist  in  this 
country,  it  is  to  be  hoped  no  such  statute  will  ever  be 
created.  The  present  is  no  place  to  descant  upon  such 
abuses  of  this  corporate  system,  but  our  business  annals  are 
actually  disgraced  with  such  proceedings.  Under  covert 
of  this  privilege  of  association,  whereby  individual  is 
merged  into  corporate  existence,  and  personal  responsibility 
shielded  by  an  aggregate,  limited  liability,  our  business 
community  commit  acts,  assume  positions  and  promulgate 
statements  which  in  their  separate,  individual  capacity 
they  would  not  presume  to  adopt,  except  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  seeing  their  financial  credit,  and  reputation  for 
common  honesty,  even,  sink  into  immediate  and  irretriev- 
able ruin. 

The  private  bankers  of  this  country  do  not,  of  course, 
issue  circulation,  yet  the  business  is  a  prosperous  and  re- 
munerative one,  and  yields  about  the  same  returns  as  the 
business  of  institutions  which  are  organized  under  our 
National  banking  system.  The  profit  derived  from  the 
issue  of  circulation  under  the  reserve  system  of  banking — 
under  the  system  of  partial  convertibility,  so  to  speak, 
already  described — is  of  very  little  value,  unless  it  may  be 
to  country  banks.  The  profits  of  our  city  banks  are  almost 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  11$ 

entirely  derived  from  loans  of  deposits.  The  deposits  in 
the  banks  of  New  York  City,  for  instance,  amount  to 
$200,000,000,  yet  their  aggregate  circulation  is  only 
$34,000,000,  and  the  expense  of  its  management  nearly 
equals  the  amount  of  accruing  profits.  So  far  as  our 
country  banks  are  concerned,  their  past  history  shows  such 
a  gross  violation  of  the  trust  of  circulation  that  the  interests 
of  community  would  be  furthered  in  every  respect  if  they 
were  placed  under  a  permanent  proscription. 

The  examination  of  the  present  offices  of  banking,  as  an- 
nounced in  the  outset  of  this  discussion — namely,  deposit, 
discount  and  circulation — is  here  concluded.  Comment 
upon  the  subjects  of  free  banking  and  banking  as  a  mo- 
nopoly would  find  a  logical  place  in  this  connection,  but 
as  the  same  would  require  repetition,  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent, in  the  second  division  of  this  chapter,  it  is  deferred1 
until  the  National  Banking  System  shall  form  the  topic  of 
investigation. 

The  subject  of  Banks  and  Banking  Business  in  General 
will  cease  to  engage  attention  with  the  briefest  possible 
allusion  to  some  of  the  older  institutions  of  this  character 
which  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  commerce  and 
civilization  of  the  world.  Reference  is  had  to  the  Banks 
of  Venice,  Genoa  and  Amsterdam,  which  were  established, 
the  first  two  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  the  last  in  the  year 
1609.  The  Bank  of  Amsterdam  was  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant of  these  institutions.  The  causes  which  led  to  its 
creation  were  precisely  the  same  as  those  which  induced 
the  formation  of  its  predecessors,  and  the  organization  of 
the  three  was  similar  in  every  important  particular.  The 
origin  and  management  of  the  Bank  of  Amsterdam  will 
consequently  only  be  explained. 

The  measure  of  value  of  Amsterdam  and  of  Europe  dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  century  consisted  of  gold  and  silver. 
The  commerce  of  Amsterdam  at  this  period  outstripped 


Il6          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

that  of  any  other  European  city  or  state.  She  was,  in  fact, 
the  storehouse  of  the  world.  As  her  territory  was  very 
limited,  the  amount  of  her  current  coinage  was  conse- 
quently small.  Her  immense  traffic,  moreover,  placed  her 
in  daily  intercourse  with  the  whole  of  Continental  Europe 
and  the  English  isles.  Great  Britain  and  the  East  de- 
pended upon  her,  in  a  great  measure,  for  their  stores,  and 
in  turn  filled  her  coffers  with  their  metallic  treasure.  In 
consequence  of  her  small  coinage  and  this  enormous  influx 
of  the  Money  of  other  countries,  her  currency  was  made  up 
almost  entirely  of  foreign  coin  and  of  a  very  diversified 
character.  It  unavoidably  consisted,  moreover,  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent,  of  coin  the  value  of  which  was  more  or  less 
diminished  by  clipping  and  abrasion,  for  the  coinage  of 
some  of  the  countries  upon  her  extended  list  of  customers 
would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  old  and  require  reforma- 
tion. This  heterogeneous  currency  of  Amsterdam  militated 
against  the  interests  of  her  merchants  in  the  way  of  ex- 
change. Holders  of  bills  drawn  against  these  merchants 
would  not  accept  this  clipped  and  worn  currency  except  at  a 
discount,  which,  owing  to  its  diversified  as  well  as  deteri- 
orated character,  was  by  no  means  inconsiderable. 

To  remedy  these  evils  the  Bank  of  Amsterdam  was  es- 
tablished. It  was  a  mere  bank  of  deposit,  under  the  guar- 
antee of  the  city,  for  the  purpose,  in  the  first  instance,  so 
to  speak,  of  recoining  the  clipped  and  worn  coin  of  which  the 
currency  of  Amsterdam  was  composed.  It  received  this 
coin  on  deposit,  allowing  a  sum  for  it  equal  to  the  real  in- 
trinsic value  of  the  same,  less  the  expense  of  recoinage  and 
management,  with  which  sum  the  depositor  was  credited  on 
the  books  of  the  bank,  and  given  a  written  "credit  " — re- 
ceipt— therefor.  These  deposits,  assuming  as  they  did  by 
recoinage  an  enhanced  value  over  the  mixed  currency  in 
circulation,  were  known  by  the  name  of  Bank  Money.  A 
statute  of  the  city,  moreover,  directed  that  every  bill  drawn 


BANKS  AND  BANKING  BUSINESS.  1 1/ 

on  Amsterdam  over  a  certain  amount  (600  guilders)  should 
be  paid  in  bank  funds,  thus  necessitating  every  merchant  to 
have  a  deposit  with  the  bank.  This  institution,  moreover, 
received  bullion  on  deposit,  crediting  the  depositor  with  a 
sum  in  bank  Money  equal  to  nearly  what  would  result  from 
the  coining  of  the  bullion,  less  the  expense  of  such  coinage. 
It  also  gave  the  depositor  of  bullion  a  receipt,  which  en- 
titled him  to  the  right  of  withdrawing  his  bullion  within  a 
given  time  upon  payment  of  a  sum  of  bank  Money  equal  to 
the  amount  of  the  same  with  which  he  was  credited  for  his 
deposit,  plus  an  additional  sum  for  the  safe-keeping  of  the 
bullion  ;  but  if  the  depositor  failed  to  call  for  his  bullion  at 
the  expiration  of  the  time  specified,  the  bullion  became  the 
property  of  the  bank,  and  the  depositor  had  no  claim  upon 
it,  except  for  the  bank  Money  with  which  he  was  credited. 
These  receipts  for  bullion  and  credits  for  bank  Money 
created  two  classes  of  creditors  against  the  bank.  The 
holder  of  a  bank  credit  could  obtain  his  money  upon  pre- 
sentation of  the  credit — that  is,  the  whole  sum;  it  could  not 
be  drawn  or  checked  against  in  fragments — but  the  holder 
of  such  a  credit  could  not  obtain  bullion  from  the  bank 
without  presenting  a  bullion  receipt,  which  must  be  bought 
in  the  market  with  bank  Money  if  not  possessed ;  and  the 
holder  of  a  bullion  receipt  could  not  draw  out  his  bullion 
without  paying  the  bank  a  certain  sum  of  bank  Money, 
which  must  also  be  done  by  buying  a  bank  credit  in  the 
market  if  not  already  at  hand.  In  consequence  of  these 
deposits  being  guaranteed  by  the  city  and  the  ingenious 
regulations  just  described,  which  operated  like  seigniorage 
(as  explained  in  the  first  chapter)  to  enhance  the  price  of 
bank  Money  and  bank  bullion,  this  institution  was  operated 
as  a  mere  bank  of  deposit,  according  to  the  intent  of  its 
originators.  So  long  as  the  coin  and  bullion  were  in  the 
coffers  of  the  bank,  it  held  a  premium,  while  if  removed  it 
sank  to  a  pur  valuation  with  the  mixed  and  depreciated 


1 1 8         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

currency  of  the  city.  The  business  of  the  bank  was  thus 
entirely  that  of  deposit,  and  its  credits  and  bullion  receipts 
remained  in  constant  circulation,  furnishing  adequate  means 
for  protection  of  the  commercial  community  against  loss  on 
exchange.  These  deposits  of  coin  and  bullion  formed  the 
only  capital  of  the  bank,  and  its  business,  under  the  regu- 
lations above  named,  was  exceedingly  remunerative,  par- 
ticularly its  bullion  transactions.  It  was  for  many  years, 
so  to  speak,  the  bailee  of  all  Europe  for  the  safe-keeping  of 
its  metallic  treasure.  The  city  of  Amsterdam  received  certain 
remuneration  from  the  bank  for  the  guarantee  of  its  sol- 
vency, and  the  institution,  both  pecuniarily  and  in  way  of 
convenience,  promoted  the  interests  of  the  city  and  its  com- 
mercial population.  The  deposits  of  the  bank  amounted 
in  1775  to  the  enormous  sum  of  $35, 000,000,  and  its  annual 
business  reached  the  colossal  proportions  of  $4,000,000,000. 
The  bank  failed  in  1790,  by  reason  of  having  loaned 
nearly  the  entire  amount  of  its  capital — which,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, consisted  of  its  deposits — to  the  States  General, 
East  India  Company  and  the  city  of  Amsterdam.  It  had, 
indeed,  been  in  this  bankrupt  condition  for  fifty  years, 
with  its  credit  and  bullion  receipts  all  the  while  selling  at 
a  premium.  It  is  amusing,  in  contemplation  of  this  fact, 
to  read  the  words  of  Adam  Smith,  written  only  about  ten 
years  before  the  failure  of  this  institution,  and  forty  years 
after  it  was  in  a  state  of  perfect  though  secret  insolvency. 
In  his  "Wealth  of  Nations"  Mr.  Smith  says  :  "At  Amster- 
dam, however,  no  point  of  faith  is  better  established  than 
that  for  every  guilder  circulated  as  bank  Money  there  is  a 
corresponding  guilder  of  gold  or  silver  to  be  found  in  the 
treasures  of  the  bank."  The  shrewd  Dutch  burgomasters 
who  constituted  the  directory  of  the  bank  must  have  read 
these  words  of  confidence  of  Mr.  Smith  with  a  grim  smile 
of  satisfaction  at  their  ability  of  "  how  not  to  do  it,"  when 
for  nearly  half  a  century,  comparatively  speaking,  the  cof- 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  1 1 9 

fers  of  the  bank  had  been  in  a  state  of  constant  depletion. 
This  fact,  however,  is  forcibly  illustrative  of  the  truth  we 
have  often  asserted  in  the  course  of  this  discussion,  that 
faith — credit — is  the  basis  of  banking.  Here  was  an  insti- 
tution which  for  fifty  years  had  prosecuted  an  annual  busi- 
ness of  from  $3,000,000,000  to  $4,000,000,000  solely  upon 
credit.  It  was  all  this  time  the  supposed  guardian  of  the 
treasure  of  Europe,  and  was,  in  truth,  during  this  period 
of  bankruptcy  an  efficient  and  indispensable  agency  for 
the  exchange  business  of  Amsterdam  and  many  other  im- 
portant European  marts.  The  exact  loss  to  depositors  by 
its  failure  has  never  been  accurately  stated,  but  some  writers 
have  asserted  that  such  loss,  by  an  arithmetical  calculation, 
would  be  fully  recompensed  by  the  saving  which  the  insti- 
tution had  afforded  its  customers  in  the  business  of  ex- 
change. 

DIVISION   SECOND. 
THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

A  Monopoly — Its  Origin — Its  Adoption  and  Principal  Features — The 
Advantages  of  the  System — They  are  seen  in  its  Material  Basis, 
Government  Bonds — The  Arguments  against  this  Feature  of  the 
System  Examined  and  Refuted — They  are  also  seen  in  the  Element 
of  Uniformity — Compared  with  the  State  Bank  System  in  this  respect 
— Also  seen  in  the  fact  that  Circulation  cannot  be  in  Excess — Its 
Disadvantages — A  Monopoly — How  a  Monopoly — It  sets  an  Arbi- 
trary Limit  upon  the  Extent  of  Circulation — In  this  respect,  Unjust, 
Indefensible  and  in  Violation  of  Economic  Law — It  robs  the  Peo- 
ple of  the  Benefit  of  Circulation  and  confers  it  upon  the  National 
Banks — In  this  respect  it  Enforces  Illegal  Taxation — Minor  Defects 
— The  Theory  of  Convertibility,  as  applied  to  the  System,  fully 
Examined — The  Conflict  between  the  System  and  the  Legal-Tender 
Notes — A  Balance  taken  between  the  two — The  Result  in  Favor  of 
the  Banks — The  System,  with  certain  Modifications,  a  Success. 

IN  the  second  chapter  of  this  treatise  sufficient  comment 
was  made  upon  the  banking  system  which  preceded  our 


120         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

present  National  institution  to  warrant  the  omission  of  all 
matter  which  naturally  prefaces  the  discussion  of  our  pres- 
ent subject.  It  will  therefore  engage  immediate  attention. 

The  National  banking  system  of  the  United  States  is, 
comparatively  speaking,  an  unqualified  monopoly.  It  is 
not  a  monopoly,  however,  in  the  same  sense  as  are  the 
banking  systems  of  France  and  London.  The  colossal 
institutions  which  conduct  the  entire  banking  business  of 
the  English  metropolis  and  the  French  nation  are  instances 
of  monopoly  by  virtue  of  a  contract  existing  between  these 
institutions  and  the  respective  governments  of  France  and 
Great  Britain ;  while  the  National  banking  system  of  this 
country  is  a  monopoly  by  force  of  statute  law.  It  had  its 
origin  in  a  period  when  the  United  States  were  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  most  stupendous  struggle  ever  waged  for  the 
preservation  of  liberty  and  the  maintenance  of  constitutional 
government.  Our  advance  upon  Richmond  had  been 
stayed,  not  so  much  by  opposing  force  as  by  conflict  of  ex- 
ecutive and  military  authority;  the  feasibility  of  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation  was,  in  a  measure,  dividing  public 
sentiment;  the  metropolis  of  the  nation  was  in  open  rebel- 
lion against  the  draft  of  the  General  Government  for  men  ; 
and  almost  the  only  ray  of  hope  that  lent  encouragement 
to  this  struggle  for  liberty  and  law  was  found  in  the  tidings 
of  victory  which  Rosecrans  had  written  with  a  river  of 
blood  upon  the  banks  of  the  Tennessee.  Amid  such  sur- 
roundings the  National  banking  system  was  inaugurated  as 
a  measure  for  the  relief  of  Government.  If  it  has  de- 
fects, it  is  only  surprising  that  they  are  so  few  in  number — 
if  merit,  that  so  much  attaches  to  the  system  as  is,  on  all 
sides,  admitted.  That  it  has  the  former  we  propose  to  show, 
and  the  latter  shall  endeavor  to  maintain. 

This  system  was  adopted  by  an  act  of  Congress  approved 
February  25,  1863.  Several  amendatory  acts  have  since 
been  passed,  and  the  principal  features  of  the  system,  in 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  121 

pursuance  of  these  several  acts  of  legislation,  are  as  fol- 
lows:  $354,000,000  of  National  currency,  under  the  super- 
vision of  a  Treasury  bureau  established  for  this  purpose, 
with  an  official  head  styled  the  Comptroller  of  the  Curren- 
cy, are  directed  to  be  issued  to  associations  of  individuals 
throughout  the  country  for  the  transaction  of  banking 
business,  upon  due  proof  of  organization  in  accordance 
with  the  requirements  of  the  act.  Such  associations  must 
consist,  at  least,  of  five  persons,  with  a  capital  of  not  less 
than  $50,000,  nor  more  than  $500,000,  to  whom  the  right 
of  succession  by  a  corporate  name  shall  belong  for  twenty 
years.  The  liability  of  each  stockholder  for  losses  is 
measured  by  tlie  amount  of  his  stock  and  other  property 
in  a  sum  equal  to  the  value  of  the  same.  Fifty  per  cent, 
of  the  capital  stock  of  any  organization  must  be  paid  in 
before  commencing  business,  and  the  remainder  in  ten 
monthly  payments  immediately  thereafter.  Upon  payment 
of  the  said  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  capital  stock,  and  a  deposit, 
with  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States,  of  Government 
bonds  in  a  sum  equal  to  one-third  of  its  paid-up  stock,  and 
not  less  than  $30,000,  an  amount  of  the  National  currency 
hereinbefore  named,  not  exceeding  ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
value  of  the  bonds  deposited  as  aforesaid  and  the  full 
amount  of  stock  paid  in,  is  issued  to  associations  organ- 
izing under  the  act,  as  a  means  of  circulation.  This 
National  currency  assumes  the  form  of  promises  of  these 
institutions  to  pay  Money  on  demand,  with  a  statement  of 
the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  that  such  promises  are 
secured  by  a  deposit  of  Government  bonds  at  Washington. 
The  deposit  of  bonds  before  referred  to  is  solely  for  the 
redemption  of  the  above-named  circulation.  Any  insti- 
tution of  this  character  may  own  real  estate  suitable  for  its 
business  accommodation,  and  for  security  of  debts  prior  to 
such  conveyances  as  are  hereafter  named  may  take  mort- 
gages upon  this  species  of  property.  Hanks  organizing 
11  F 


122         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

under  this  act  in  the  cities  of  St.  Louis,  Louisville,  Chicago, 
Detroit,  Milwaukee,  New  Orleans,  Cincinnati,  Cleveland, 
Pittsburg,  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  New  York, 
Albany,  Leavenworth,  San  Francisco  and  Washington,  are 
required  to  hold  a  sum  of  lawful  Money  equal  to  twenty- 
five,  and  all  other  banks  a  sum  equal  to  fifteen,  per  cent,  of 
the  amount  of  their  deposits  and  circulation,  as  a  reserve 
for  the  payment  and  conversion  of  the  same.  Three-fifths 
of  this  reserve  fund  of  banks  outside  of  the  cities  above- 
named  may  consist  of  balances  due  such  banks  from  similar 
institutions  in  said  cities.  All  banks  in  the  cities  above- 
named  must  have  an  agency  at  some  similar  bank  in  the 
city  of  New  York  for  the  redemption  of  their  circulation 
at  par ;  and  all  banks  not  located  in  the  cities  above- 
named  must  have  an  agency  with  a  similar  bank  in  some 
one  of  these  said  cities  for  the  purpose  of  such  redemption. 
In  lieu  of  all  other  Federal  taxation  a  half-yearly  tax  is 
imposed  upon  these  institutions  in  favor  of  the  General 
Government  of  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  upon  the  amount 
of  the  circulation,  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent,  upon 
amount  of  deposits,  and  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent,  upon 
amount  of  capital  stock  not  invested  in  Government  bonds. 
As  a  basis  upon  which  to  make  assessments  in  accordance 
with  the  foregoing,  each  institution  is  required  to  make  five 
reports  each  year  to  the  Treasury  at  Washington.  The 
stock  and  real  estate  of  each  institution  are  subject  to  State 
taxation  upon  the  same  basis  as  other  property  of  a  similar 
character.  Old  State  banks  are  empowered  to  reorganize 
under  this  act,  and  of  the  $354,000,000  of  circulation 
above  described  one-sixth  may  be  in  notes  of  a  sum  below 
five  dollars,  but  not  less  than  one  dollar,  until  a  resumption 
of  specie  payments,  at  which  time  no  part  of  said  circu- 
lation shall  consist  of  notes  of  less  than  five  dollars. 

These,  in  a  concise  form,  are  the  principal  features  of 
the  National  banking  system.     The  further  discussion  of 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  123 

the  subject  will  be  conducted — first,  by  a  consideration  of 
the  advantages  of  this  system ;  second,  by  an  examination 
of  its  disadvantages  ;  and  third,  by  some  general  comment 
upon  miscellaneous  questions  collateral  to  these  two  phases 
of  the  main  subject. 

An  important  advantage  derived  from  the  present  bank- 
ing system  of  this  country  is  found  in  the  character  of  its 
material  basis — in  the  peculiar  species  of  capital  which 
serves  as  an  ultimate  fund  for  the  redemption  of  the  Na- 
tional currency — of  the  banking  circulation — namely,  Gov- 
ernment bonds.  The  capital  of  these  institutions,  it  is  true, 
need  not  consist  entirely  of  these  securities,  but  they  are  at 
least  required  to  invest  these  bonds  to  the  extent  of  their 
circulation  and  ten  per  cent,  in  addition.  This  requirement 
in  two  respects  provides  a  fund  for  the  ultimate  protection 
of  the  note-holder — for  the  redemption  of  the  circulation — 
which  is,  so  far  as  human  agency  can  constitute  it,  both  un- 
impeachable and  indestructible.  This  is  true,  in  the  first 
instance,  on  account  of  the  element  of  superior  credit  which 
attaches  to  this  species  of  property.  The  bonds  are  an  evi- 
dence of  the  indebtedness  of  the  supreme  power,  the  Gov- 
ernment's notes  of  hand,  secured,  comparatively  speaking,  by 
all  the  property  of  every  individual  State  and  the  nation. 
The  acquaintance  of  the  entire  world  with  the  maker  of  these 
bonds,  with  the  strength,  stability  and  integrity  of  their 
source  of  issue,  renders  them  everywhere  convertible  into 
lawful  Money  in  any  amount  with  no  more  form  or  for- 
mality than  that  with  which  a  laborer  buys  a  loaf  for  his 
frugal  meal.  Theyhave  a  place  in  the  stock  market  of 
every  commercial  city,  are  salable  in  every  village  and 
provincial  town,  and  are  calUg^  upon  'Change  in  all  the 
principal  Money  marts  offlp  own  and  other  countries. 
Their  value,  inorc-mrr.  i>  (veil,  stable  and  unsusrrpiiMr  of 
any  great  change,  except  t'nmtjcauses  which  affect  the  value 
of  all  other  species  of  property  in  a  similar  degree. 


124         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

This  requirement,  in  the  second  instance,  provides  an  un- 
impeachable and  indestructible  fund  for  the  protection  of 
the  note-holder,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  these  securities 
are  held  in  trust,  for  this  sole,  specific  purpose,  by  the  Na- 
tional Government.  In  this  respect  the  note-holder  re- 
ceives far  more  ample  protection  than  under  our  old  State 
bank  system.  By  this  last  system,  with  the  entire  capital  of 
each  bank,  in  most  cases,  under  its  own  control  and  in  its 
immediate  possession,  the  same  was  often  trenched  upon — 
yes,  frequently  appropriated  in  toto — for  the  enlargement 
of  the  discount  fund ;  and  thus  the  note-holder  of  these 
State  banks,  with  the  exception  of  the  time  when  the  bank 
commissioners  made  their  annual  visit  of  inspection  to 
these  institutions,  had  no  knowledge  whether  or  not  their 
currency  was  protected  by  a  proper  reserve.  Under  our 
present  system,  however,  there  is  no  fact  more  indispu- 
tably within  the  knowledge  of  every  member  of  commu- 
nity than  that  for  every  dollar  of  National  currency  trav- 
ersing the  avenues  of  commerce  there  is  a  corresponding 
dollar  and  more  of  Government  bonds  in  the  Treasury  at 
Washington  to  insure  its  redemption.  The  reader  will  no- 
tice that  the  foregoing  remarks  make  the  inferential  asser- 
tion that  the  discount  fund  of  our  National  banks  is  limited 
by  the  amount  of  their  deposits.  The  use  of  capital  for 
the  business  of  discount  or  for  any  collateral  purpose  is 
indeed  expressly  forbidden  by  the  act.  In  these  respects 
the  National  banking  system  furnishes  a  means  of  protec- 
tion to  the  holder  of  National  currency  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  circulation  as  absolutely  sumas  human  wisdom 
can  provide,  while  that  of  its  predecessor  was  vacillating 
and  uncertain. 

This  feature  of  our  present  banking  system,  however,  has 
been  strenuously  objected  to  uMh  the  following  grounds. 
The  argument  is  made  that,  iri"case  of  war,  these  securities, 
by  reason  of  the  combined  facts  of  the  existence  of  war  and 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  12$ 

the  consequent  necessity  of  making  new  Government  loans, 
would  depreciate  in  value  to  the  extent  of  driving  the  banks 
into  suspension  of  specie  payments  and  frequent  bank- 
ruptcy, on  account  of  their  resulting  obligation  to  increase 
their  deposits  of  these  securities  at  Washington  for  the  pro- 
tection of  their  notes,  and  thus  in  the  latter  instance 
(bankruptcy)  throw  the  additional  burden  upon  Govern- 
ment of  selling  the  bonds  of  the  banks  in  its  possession  for 
the  redemption  of  their  circulation.  The  argument  is  spe- 
cious, but  not  solid.  Its  entire  foundation  is  the  assump- 
tion of  a  certain  depreciation  in  our  Government  securi- 
ties, and  this  assumption,  to  the  extent  urged,  is  not  war- 
ranted by  historical  facts.  It  is  probably  safe  to  suppose 
that  this  nation  will  never  be  involved  in  a  more  extensive 
and  expensive  war  than  that  from  which  it  has  just  emerged. 
The  accompanying  assertion  is  also  admissible  that,  by 
reason  of  the  successful  termination  of  that  war,  and  the 
more  successful  maintenance  of  our  National  credit  by  a 
steady  reduction  of  the  debt  thereby  incurred,  greatly  as 
revenue  reformers  may  regret  it,  the  securities  of  this  Gov- 
ernment in  case  of  future  hostilities  would  not  depreciate 
to  the  lowest  point  reached  during  the  late  rebellion.  But 
grant,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  they  would,  and  their 
average  value  would  be  about  seventy-eight  cents  to  the 
dollar — a  depreciation  of  twenty-two  per  cent.  The  capi- 
tal of  the  National  banks  at  the  close  of  this  year  (1871) 
is  about  $500,000,000;  circulation,  $325,000,000;  bonds 
on  deposit  at  Washington  to  secure  the  same,  $365,000,000. 
In  the  event  of  war  these  bonds,  by  the  hypothesis,  would 
depreciate  twenty-two  per  cent.,  thus  requiring  an  increase 
by  the  banks  of  their  bond  deposit  in  the  sum  of  about 
$80,000,000.  The  amount  of  this  increase  does  not  equal 
the  difference  between  the  aggregate  capital  of  the  banks 
and  that  portion  of  it  on  deposit  at  Washington,  as  above 
stated,  by  over  $50,000,000.  In  other  words,  in  the  event 
11  • 


1 26  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  war,  thereby  depreciating  Government  securities  twenty- 
two  per  cent.,  the  National  banks  could  make  good  their 
margin  for  the  redemption  of  their  entire  circulation,  and 
then  have  over  $50,000,000  of  their  capital  in  their  own 
possession  intact.  These  are  facts.  They  are  certainly 
not  fraught  with  vaticinations  of  bankruptcy  for  our  Na- 
tional banks  in  either  the  event  of  civil  disturbances  or 
foreign  war.  The  foundation  of  this  argument  being  de- 
stroyed, the  whole  structure  falls  with  it.  If  war  will  not 
force  our  banking  institutions  into  bankruptcy,  the  fund  for 
the  protection  of  the  National  currency  will  not  be  jeop- 
ardized, and  the  Government  not  be  obliged  to  sell  the 
bonds  of  the  banks  in  its  possession  for  the  redemption  of 
the  same.  As  for  specie  payments,  their  suspension  in- 
variably follows  the  outbreak  of  extended  hostilities  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances. 

The  next  advantage  resulting  to  community  from  the 
National  banking  system  is  found  in  the  argument  of  uni- 
formity. Extended  comment  upon  this  point  is  entirely 
unnecessary.  Its  principal  feature  is  that  which  renders 
the  notes  of  a  National  bank  as  current  in  one  portion  of 
the  country  as  another.  This  advantage,  moreover,  is  an 
offshoot  of  the  one  which  has  just  passed  from  discussion. 
The  notes  of  the  National  banks  possess  this  element  of 
universal  acceptability,  for  the  simple  reason  that  as  they 
pass  from  hand  to  hand  they  convey  the  assurance  that  the 
lock  of  the  National  Treasury  is  turned  upon  an  amount  of 
Government  bonds  more  than  sufficient  to  warrant  their 
redemption.  The  credit  of  the  immediate  bank  of  issue 
may  be  known  or  unknown,  sound  or  uncertain,  but  the 
solvency  of  the  indorser  who  has  guaranteed  their  payment 
is  everywhere  notorious  and  undoubted.  The  lack  of  this 
uniformity  was  one  of  the  cardinal  defects  of  our  State  bank 
system.  Despite  the  local  character  which  was  impressed 
upon  the  notes  of  these  institutions,  they  found  their  way, 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  I2/ 

to  a  certain  extent,  through  the  deviating  channels  of  traffic, 
to  nearly  every  quarter  of  the  Union.  The  reputation  of 
the  particular  source  of  issue  in  these  distant  localities 
was,  in  a  certain  sense,  entirely  unknown,  and  the  valuation 
of  its  currency  diminished  with  the  addition  of  every  league 
to  the  distance  which  separated  the  paper  wanderer  from 
its  birthplace.  Unavoidable  loss  always  resulted  to  the 
holder  of  such  currency,  and  the  published  reports  which 
presumed  to  furnish  a  criterion  of  its  value  often  left  the 
last  state  of  their  patrons  worse  than  the  first.  Accuracy, 
in  this  respect,  was  impossible,  and  the  legion  of  "bank- 
note detectives,"  "reporters,"  etc.  which  courted  the  ser- 
vice of  the  commercial  world  prior  to  1863  were,  in  most 
instances,  so  many  libels  upon  the  credit  of  some  of  these 
institutions  on  the  one  hand,  and  seducers  of  public  cre- 
dulity on  the  other. 

The  evil  of  this  lack  of  uniformity  recoiled  with  terrible 
effect,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  upon  the  sections  of 
country  from  which  this  doubtful  currency,  for  the  most 
part,  had  emanated.  The  merchants  of  the  West,  during 
the  earlier  years  of  the  conflict,  were  not  unfrequently 
obliged  to  pa'y  for  exchange  on  our  Eastern  cities  as  high 
as  thirty  per  cent.  That  is,  a  Western  merchant,  in  order 
to  cancel  obligations  due  Eastern  houses,  must  make  good 
the  difference  between  the  currency  of  Eastern  and  Western 
banks,  which  often  reached  the  point  above  named.  The 
National  banking  system,  to  such  parties — and  they  by  no 
means  constituted  a  small  portion  of  our  tax-paying  popula- 
tion— was  a  measure  of  almost  incalculable  benefit.  This 
argument  of  uniformity,  moreover,  has  been  the  subject  of 
considerable  objective  discussion,  and  that  in  almost  inex- 
cusable terms  of  derision  In  defence  of  the  non-uniform- 
ity of  the  State  bank  circulation,  despite  the  pernicious 
attendants  of  the  same,  as  above  stated,  which  could  not  be 
denied,  the  defenders  of  that  system  have  cited  the  English, 


128         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Irish  and  Scotch  banks  as  precedents  to  support  their 
theory.  They  say,  ''Diverse  species  of  circulation  have 
proved  a  success  in  Great  Britain  ;  ergo,  they  must  be  equally 
feasible  in  the  United  States."  Has  any  one  ever  denied 
the  feasibility  of  a  plan  of  mixed  circulation  whose  terri- 
torial limits  would  not  include  a  nation  larger  in  area  than 
the  State  of  New  York?  The  comparison  is  an  absurdity. 
A  resident  of  Devon,  Munster  or  Dumfries  can  shake  the 
hand  of  his  neighbor  in  Northumberland,  Londonderry 
or  Sutherland  by  means  of  a  pleasure-trip  from  night  to 
morn,  but  a  traveler  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  can  catch 
the  sob  of  the  waves  at  the  Golden  Gate  only  at  the  end 
of  a  continuous  journey  wherein  he  has  witnessed  seven  re- 
currences of  a  rising  and  setting  sun. 

Another  advantage  of  immense  importance  resulting  to 
community  from  the  operation  of  the  National  banking 
system  which  has  incidentally  appeared  in  this  discussion 
is  found  in  the  fact  that  under  this  system  the  circula- 
tion of  our  banking  institutions  cannot  be  in  excess.  In 
other  words,  the  National  banks,  by  the  provisions  of  the 
act,  can  receive  National  currency  for  purposes  of  circula- 
tion only  as  they  have  deposited  Government  bonds  at 
Washington  for  the  redemption  of  the  same,  with  an  excess 
of  ten  per  cent.  Another  safeguard  against  excessive  cir- 
culation is  here  secured  by  an  accompanying  provision  of 
the  act,  which  forbids  the  issue  of  currency  by  any  bank 
above  the  amount  of  its  actually  paid-up  capital.  These 
important  principles  require  no  elucidation  or  comment. 
The  virtual  absence  of  them  in  the  old  State  bank  system 
was  the  occasion  of  both  official  chicanery  and  individual 
loss. 

The  line  of  this  discussion  will  now  pass  to  a  criticism 
of  the  vulnerable  points  of  our  present  system  of  banking. 
The  defects  in  this  system  of  sufficient  dignity  to  provoke 
a  direct  and  searching  investigation  are  only  two  in  num- 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  12$ 

her.  First,  by  virtue  of  the  act  establishing  this  system 
banking  business  in  the  United  States  is  made  a  monopoly ; 
second,  in  pursuance  of  the  same  authority  the  National 
banks  derive  nearly  the  entire  benefit  of  circulation.  Of 
these  in  their  order. 

In  assuming  that  our  present  banking  system  is  a  mo- 
nopoly, it  is  only  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that  by  the 
act  establishing  the  same  an  arbitrary  limit  is  set  upon  the 
amount  of  circulation,  and  consequently  upon  the  number 
of  banking  institutions.  In  other  words,  the  proper  bound- 
aries of  our  circulating  medium  and  banking  business  are 
presumed  to  be  ascertained  by  the  artificial  force  of  statute 
law.  This  is  wrong  in  theory  and  perplexing  in  practice. 

The  reader  must  not  in  this  connection  take  this  propo- 
sition to  be  contradictory  of  the  principles  discussed  in  the 
chapter  wherein  "Resumption  of  Specie  Payments"  con- 
stituted a  topic  of  investigation.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  in  that  discussion  the  plan  of  curtailing  our  present 
circulation  was  advocated  as  a  means  of  resumption,  which 
of  course  inferentially  asserts  that  to  a  certain  extent  statute 
law  must  define  the  requisite  volume  of  our  medium  of 
exchange ;  and  in  the  present  state  of  things  it  must.  The 
two  propositions  are  harmonized  by  the  statement  that  our 
protest  against  the  application  of  statute  law  for  the  deter- 
mination of  the  proper  boundaries  of  circulation  presup- 
poses a  status  of  specie  payments.  In  other  words,  until 
currency  becomes  so  inflated  as  to  destroy,  so  to  speak,  the 
equilibrium  between  it  and  metallic  Money,  and  in  thus 
ousting  the  business  of  the  country  from  a  specie  basis  leave 
the  prices  of  commodities  to  be  measured  by  the  amount 
of,currency  in  circulation  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
scarcity  and  excess,  hereinbefore  explained,  statute  law 
should  not  assume  to  prescribe  the  amount  of  money  requi- 
site for  commercial  purposes;  but  when  that  point  is  passed, 
this  artificial  force  should  be  applied  only  to  the  extent  of 

FJ 


I3O         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

replacing  business  upon  the  basis  of  metallic  Money.  Spe- 
cie payments,  then,  constitute  the  real  boundary-line  be- 
tween the  dominion  of  natural  and  artificial  force  in  the 
sphere  of  circulation. 

Returning  to  the  main  argument,  that  this  monopoly,  as 
heretofore  explained,  is  wrong  in  theory  and  perplexing  in 
practice,  the  proposition  is  asserted,  which  has  inferentially 
appeared  in  the  interlocutory  issue  just  dismissed,  that  this 
monopoly  is  thus  theoretically  defective  because  it  violates 
one  of  the  fundamental  principles  which  govern  the  rela- 
tions of  Money  to  commerce.  It  is  impossible  for  the  ar- 
bitrary restraint  of  statute  to  regulate  the  necessary  volume 
of  circulation  until,  as  before  stated,  the  Rubicon  of  specie 
payments  has  been  passed.  Prior  to  this  condition  of 
things  commerce  is  the  only  infallible  conservator  of  its 
moneyed  necessities.  The  natural  law,  already  elucidated 
in  this  discussion,  that  plenty  on  the  one  hand  drives  prod- 
ucts to  sell  in  fields  of  want,  and  scarcity  on  the  other 
drives  money  to  purchase  in  fields  of  plenty,  operates  with 
a  relative,  though  not  absolute,  force  in  this  connection. 
Our  present  banking  system  is  no  exception  to  this  general 
law.  With  specie  payments  established  by  a  retirement  of 
our  legal -tenders,  the  limit  now  placed  upon  the  amount  of 
our  circulation  should  be  removed,  and  the  door  of  banking 
business  opened  to  all  who  have  the  inclination,  necessary 
capital  and  requisite  ability  to  prosecute  it.  The  banks 
under  the  present  system  cannot  issue  circulation  without 
securing  it  with  Government  bonds;  the  note-holder  is  con- 
sequently protected  to  the  utmost,  and  the  security  and 
profit  which  capital  always  seeks  furnishes  sufficient  barrier 
against  the  possibility  of  excessive  investments  of  the  same 
in  banking  pursuits. 

The  fallacy  of  these  artificial  restraints  upon  the  business 
of  banking  and  the  volume  of  circulation  is  seen  in  the 
result  of  the  recent  attempt  of  Congress  to  "equalize  the 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  13! 

currency,"  the  features  of  which  were  stated  in  the  history 
of  the  paper  Money  of  this  country  in  the  next  preceding 
chapter.  The  theory  of  a  general  statute  attempting  to 
make  proper  local  distribution  of  circulation  has  been 
conclusively  shown  in  this  instance  to  be  entirely  unsound. 
The  "equalization"  offered  has  never  been  appropriated 
by  the  community  in  the  extent  predicated,  and  had  Con- 
gress retired  the  legal-tenders,  thus  securing  specie  pay- 
ments, and  removed  the  limit  upon  circulation,  the  "  equali- 
zation of  the  currency"  would  have  taken  care  of  itself. 
This  matter  of  equalization  cannot  be  appreciated  by  mere 
consideration  of  territorial  area  or  extent  of  population. 
New  England,  with  three  millions  of  people,  has  always 
had  four  times  as  much  circulation  as  the  West  with  eight 
millions ;  and  when,  in  answer  to  the  complaint  of  the  lat- 
ter section  of  the  country  in  this  respect,  in  the  winter  of 
1869  and  1870,  the  "equalization"  was  offered,  it  failed 
to  avail  itself  of  the  privilege,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
it  then  possessed  all  the  circulation  required  for  business 
purposes. 

In  directing  attention  to  the  second  and  last  defect  of 
any  importance  in  our  National  banking  system,  the  pro- 
position is  asserted  that,  in  so  far  as  the  banks  constitute 
the  mediate,  and  the  General  Government  the  immediate, 
agency  of  circulation,  the  system  is  pre-eminently  sound 
and  wholesome ;  but  in  so  far  as  the  profits  of  circulation 
result,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  banking  institutions,  the 
system  is  undoubtedly  and  unqualifiedly  wrong.  This  is 
the  defect  of  the  present  system  as  to  circulation.  A  dis- 
cussion of  this  phase  of  our  circulation,  in  the  manner 
indicated,  savors  a  little  of  logical  contradiction.  The 
defects  of  the  National  banking  system  are  assumed  to  be 
the  immediate  subject  of  inquiry,  yet  we  are  here  coupling 
the  statement  of  a  benefit  with  the  consideration  of  a 
defect.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  The  two  points 


132          THE  ISSUES   QF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

are  so  intimately  associated  that  a  sacrifice  of  logical  pro- 
priety (greatly  as  the  author  dislikes  it)  seemed  preferable 
to  an  assignment  of  these  points  to  different  sub-subjects, 
when  examination  of  one  borders  so  closely  upon  that  of 
the  other. 

The  abstract  proposition  that  the  circulation  of  a  country 
devolves  upon,  and  belongs  to,  the  supreme  power — the 
General  Government — was  sufficiently  elucidated  in  the 
first  division  of  this  chapter  to  render  argument  unnecessary 
in  support  of  the  first  point  now  under  discussion — namely, 
that  the  present  circulation  of  the  United  States  is  rightly 
under  the  control  of  the  General  Government.  A  word  of 
qualification,  however,  is  pertinent  in  this  connection.  By 
the  abstract  proposition  above  stated  it  was  not  intended 
to  convey  the  idea  that  the  Government  should  perform 
the  ministerial  duties  in  reference  'to  circulation  now 
assigned  to  the  banks.  The  proposition  was  merely 
intended  to  assert  that  every  discretionary  power  as  to 
circulation  should  be  exercised  by  Government,  leaving 
the  detail  of  the  same,  as  under  our  present  system,  to  the 
various  banking  institutions  of  the  country.  That  this  is 
the  proper  theory,  as  already  stated,  was  shown  in  the 
prior  part  of  this  chapter,  and  as  already  seen,  moreover, 
this  theory  is  put  in  practice  under  our  present  system. 

The  second  point  mentioned  under  this  last  defect  of  the 
National  banking  system — namely,  that  the  profits  of  circu- 
lation should  not  result  to  the  institutions  organized  there- 
under— will  now  receive  consideration.  This  feature  of  the 
scheme  is  a  virtual  taxation  of  one  portion  of  the  com- 
munity for  the  benefit  of  another.  It  is  not  a  violation  of 
the  constitutional  provision,  which,  in  prohibiting  the 
taking  of  private  property  for  public  uses  without  just  com- 
pensation, impliedly  forbids  the  taking  of  private  property 
for  private  uses  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  but  it  is  a  violation 
of  legal  ethics  and  good  morals  no  less  flagrant  than  it 


THE  NA  TIONAL  BANKING  S  YSTEM.  1 3  3 

would  be  if  the  inhibition  of  our  organic  law  attached  to 
its  infringement.  It  appropriates  public  property  for  pri- 
vate uses  without  compensation,  and  in  so  doing  constitutes 
a  wrong  of  a  dual  character.  The  circulation  of  the  coun- 
try involves  grave  principles  of  public  economics;  it  is 
interwoven  with  all  the  interests  of  commerce  and  product- 
ive industry ;  it  is  the  motor-power  which  gives  impetus  to 
all  public  and  private  enterprises ;  it  is  the  means  by  which 
the  community  prosecutes  productive  labor ;  and  conse- 
quently not  only  devolves  upon  Government  as  a  political 
duty  of  momentous  import,  but  belongs  to  it — that  is,  to 
the  people  at  large — as  a  quasi  species  of  public  property. 
By  what  color  of  right  or  reason  is  the  exercise  of  this 
public  function  converted  into  an  engine  of  profit  in  favor 
of  a  very  limited  portion  of  the  community?  It  is  not 
only  wrong  in  principle,  but  unsupported  by  any  extended 
precedent.  The  Bank  of  England,  for  instance,  pays  a 
tax  to  the  English  government  upon  its  circulation  equal 
to  sixty-four  per  cent,  of  the  profits  derived  therefrom, 
while  our  National  banks  at  the  close  of  the  present  year 
(1871)  have  a  free  gift  of  the  interest  of  $325,000,000  of 
circulation  annually,  less  one  per  cent,  upon  the  same, 
which,  at  six  per  cent,  interest,  amounts  to  $19, 305,000. 
These  institutions  are  taxed  upon  their  deposits  and  that 
portion  of  their  capital  not  invested  in  Government  bonds, 
it  is  true,  but  it  is  a  very  meagre  tax,  as  will  be  seen  by 
reference  to  the  provisions  of  the  act  before  mentioned, 
and  a  burden,  moreover,  which  has  always  been  imposed 
upon  these  species  of  bank  property.  This  tax  on  deposits 
and  capital  is,  moreover,  a  just  and  equitable  one,  as  there 
is  no  good  reason  for  granting  an  exemption  to  such  prop- 
erty from  the  duty  of  contributing  to  the  maintenance  of 
government  and  law.  The  tax  upon  the  people,  however, 
of  $19> 305*000  in  favor  of  the  National  banks,  finds  no 
extended  authority  in  precedents  of  either  law  or  economics, 

12 


134         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

and  has  no  foundation  in  either  reason  or  justice.  The 
legitimate  source  of  banking  profit  is  found  in  the  business 
of  discount  and  exchange.  Circulation  belongs  to  the 
people. 

One  or  two  defects  in  this  system,  of  minor  importance, 
will'now  be  noticed.  It  will  be  remembered  that  a  provis- 
ion of  the  act  requires  the  country  banks  to  hold  in  reserve 
a  sum  of  lawful  Money  equal  to  fifteen  per  cent,  of  their 
deposits  and  circulation,  for  the  payment  and  redemption 
of  the  same.  The  act  also  permits  three-fifths  of  this  re- 
serve to  consist  of  balances  due  from  city  banks.  This  per- 
mission is  an  unwise  expedient.  It  creates  a  competition 
among  the  city  banks  for  the  possession  of  these  balances, 
whereby  heavy  interest  is  paid  for  the  same,  which  results 
in  a  loan  of  this  fund  by  the  city  banks  for  speculative  pur- 
poses, and  consequently  robs  legitimate  bosiness  of  a  por- 
tion of  the  banking  facilities  that  would  otherwise  accrue  to 
it,  and  fosters  speculative  interests  which  are  detrimental 
to  general  commercial  prosperity. 

Another  provision  of  the  act,  moreover,  limits  the  capital 
of  any  one  institution  to  $500,000.  This  is  entirely  faulty 
and  impracticable.  The  true  measure  of  the  requisite  capi- 
tal of  the  National  banks  is  the  extent  of  commercial  inter- 
ests they  are  called  upon  to  serve,  and  this  depends  wholly 
upon  local  causes  and  circumstances  which  are  not  in  any 
way  appreciable  by  statute  law.  The  provision  is  an  at- 
tempt to  distribute  the  circulation  among  a  greater  number 
of  banks,  for  as  the  amount  of  the  same  is  limited,  the  larger 
the  capital  of  any  one  institution  the  fewer  will  they  be  in 
number.  As  already  claimed,  the  limit  upon  the  circula- 
tion should  be  removed  concurrently  with  a  return  to 
specie  payments,  and  each  institution  left  to  decide  upon 
its  proper  amount  of  capital  in  accordance  with  local  needs 
and  requirements. 

An    examination  of    some    miscellaneous    points  which 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  135 

bear  upon  this  system  in  a  general  manner  will  conclude 
this  discussion. 

In  the  first  division  of  this  chapter  the  proposition  was 
maintained  that  primal  convertibility  of  bank  notes  is  en- 
tirely unimportant  if  the  ultimate  redemption  of  the  same 
is  assured — that  solvency  of  the  source  of  issue,  and  not 
convertibility  of  the  note,  is  the  prime  requisite  of  circula- 
tion. It  was  also  shown,  in  the  connection  above  referred 
to,  that  absolute  convertibility — that  is,  a  dollar  of  specie  in 
reserve  for  the  conversion  of  every  dollar  of  circulation — 
has  never  existed  in  the  entire  history  of  banking;  that  it 
has  always  been  a  mockery  and  a  myth.  This  discussion 
of  convertibility  does  not  require,  and  will  not  receive, 
repetition  in  this  connection,  but  the  force  of  the  principle 
above  maintained  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  our  National 
banking  system.  The  feature  of  convertibility  incorporated 
into  this  scheme  is  perfectly  idle  and  inadequate,  like  all 
of  its  predecessors.  The  act  requires  the  banks  to  hold  in 
reserve  a  sum  of  lawful  money  equal,  upon  an  average,  to 
twenty  per  cent,  of  the  amount  of  their  deposits  and  circu- 
lation, for  the  payment  and  conversion  of  the  same.  The 
amount  of  bank  deposits  and  circulation  at  the  close  of  the 
present  year  (1871),  as  already  stated,  is  $925,000,000. 
In  accordance  with  the  provision  of  the  act  above  named, 
$185, 000,000  represent  the  fund  which  the  banks  must 
hold  in  reserve  for  the  payment  of  this  circulation  and  de- 
posit indebtedness.  To  what  extent  it  would  operate  in 
this  direction  arithmetical  calculation  will  determine. 
This  feature  of  the  system  is  not  only  idle  and  inadequate, 
but  perfectly  useless.  The  amount  of  lawful  Money  reserve 
required  by  the  act  is  not  necessary  to  furnish  the  banks 
with  what  ready  cash  must  be  had  to  meet  such  checks, 
bills  and  notes  as  cannot  be  paid  by  a  mere  transfer  of  de- 
posits, as  explained  in  the  first  division  of  this  chapter  ;  for, 
though  even  every  dollar  of  circulation  to  which  the  banks 


136         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

are  entitled  is  absent  from  their  vaults,  the  portion  of  their 
deposits  which  is  made  up  of  currency,  instead  of  bills, 
notes  and  checks,  is  abundantly  sufficient  for  this  purpose. 
This  amount  of  lawful  Money  reserve,  moreover,  is  not 
needed  to  secure  the  final  redemption  of  the  circulation  ; 
that  is  fully  assured  by  the  deposit  of  Government  bonds  at 
Washington.  This  feature  of  the  system  is,  in  every  re- 
spect, mere  surplusage,  as  the  whole  scheme  of  converti- 
bility in  the  abstract,  so  far  as  it  has  ever  existed,  is  en- 
tirely unimportant  and  of  no  consequence  so  long  as 
absolute  solvency  is  assured,  as  under  our  present  system. 
It  merely  tends  to  increase  the  amount  of  banking  capital, 
and  if  the  profits  of  circulation  are  to  be  reserved  to  the 
banks  in  the  future,  Congress  had  much  better  abolish  the 
reserve  system  and  direct  these  institutions  to  subscribe  to 
the  loans  of  Government  to  the  extent  of  this  reserve — 
namely,  $185,000,000 — as  a  partial  consideration  for  the 
profits  of  circulation. 

The  objection  may  be  here  raised  that  the  depositors  of 
the  banks  have  a  right  to  demand  that  this  reserve  should 
be  held  for  their  protection.  Before  proceeding  to  com- 
bat this  position,  it  is  perhaps  proper  to  say  that  (granting 
the  claim,  for  the  moment,  to  be  a  just  one)  even  though 
the  entire  reserve  now  required  by  the  act  should  be  set 
aside  and  held  inviolate  for  that  purpose,  it  would  be 
very  inadequate  therefor.  The  reserve  fund  at  the  present 
time  (the  close  of  the  year  1871),  as  already  seen,  is 
$185,000,000,  and  the  amount  of  deposits,  as  also  already 
stated,  $600,000,000.  But  the  depositors  have  no  color  of 
right  or  title,  so  far  as  Government  is  concerned,  to  any 
reserve  fund  whatever  for  their  protection,  although,  with 
the  note-holders,  they  are  theoretical  participators  in  the 
assumed  benefit  of  such  a  fund  under  our  present  system. 
There  is  no  privity  of  contract,  or  even  estate,  if  the  last 
expression  may  be  here  used,  between  the  depositors  and 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  137 

Government.  The  banks  in  no  respect  constitute  agencies 
between  the  Government  and  depositors,  whereby,  by  force 
of  law,  the  former  is  responsible  to  the  latter  for  maladmin- 
istration of  the  banks  in  respect  to  their  deposits.  The 
matter  of  deposit  is  solely  and  entirely  a  contract  between 
the  banks  and  their  depositing  customers.  The  latter  be- 
came a  party  to  the  same  by  their  own  volition,  and  not  in 
pursuance  of  any  compulsory  measure,  either  direct  or  in- 
direct, of  the  General  Government.  They  are  bound  to 
exercise  their  own  discretion  and  judgment  as  to  the  effici- 
ency and  honesty  of  the  particular  bank  management  with 
whom  they  entrust  their  funds.  Moreover,  this  deposit 
fund,  as  already  seen,  constitutes  the  basis  of  the  business 
of  discount;  and  if  the  latter  is  properly  worked  the  col- 
laterals placed  with  the  banks  as  a  prerequisite  to  the  pro- 
curement of  discount  furnish  ample  protection  to  the  own- 
ers of  these  deposits.  Their  safety  merely  depends  upon 
the  honesty  and  capacity  of  the  bank  directors,  and  of  this, 
as  already  stated,  the  depositors  are  bound  to  be  their  own 
insurers.  The  only  party  between  whom  and  the  Govern- 
ment the  banks  occupy  the  position  of  agent,  thereby  mak- 
ing the  former  responsible  for  the  validity  of  their  transac- 
tions with  such  party,  is  the  note-holder — the  possessor  of 
circulation— of  the  National  currency.  The  Government 
is  pledged  for  the  faithful  conduct  of  the  banks  in  this 
direction,  for  it  holds  a  portion  of  their  capital  as  security 
therefor,  and  this  guarantee  of  the  Government,  moreover, 
is  made,  by  the  National  banking  act,  a  condition  precedent 
to  the  circulation  of  the  National  currency.  There  is  a 
striking  contrast  here  between  the  justice  of  our  present, 
as  compared  with  the  injustice  of  the  State  bank,  system. 
Under  the  latter,  one  fund,  in  most  instances,  was  responsi- 
ble for  both  deposits  and  circulation,  which  placed  the 
note-holder  upon  an  equal  footing  with  the  depositor  as  a 
creditor  of  the  insolvent  institutions.  The  opposite  charac- 
12  • 


138         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ter  of  our  present  system  in  this  respect  has  been  already 
explained. 

In  the  second  chapter  of  this  treatise,  where  the  legal- 
tender  notes  formed  the  subject  of  discussion,  reference  was 
made  to  the  fact  that  the  defenders  of  this  particular  species 
of  our  paper  Money  have  ever  demanded  the  abolition  of 
the  National  banks,  the  consequent  withdrawal  of  the  cir- 
culation, and  the  substitution  of  additional  legal-tenders 
in  its  room.  The  claim  was  in  that  connection  pronounced 
unreasonable  and  impracticable,  and  the  reader  referred  to 
this  discussion  for  proof  of  the  statement.  It  will  now  be 
afforded. 

Stating  the  proposition  of  these  legal-tender  romancers  a 
little  more  in  detail,  they  would  withdraw  the  $325,000,000 
of  National  bank  currency,  issue  an  equal  amount  of  legal- 
tender  notes  in  their  room,  and  with  these  notes  buy  up 
$325,000,000  of  Government  securities,  thereby  reducing 
the  interest  on  our  public  debt  in  the  sum  of  $19,500,000. 
The  first  objection  to  the  plan  is,  that  it  would  inflate  the  ac- 
tual circulation  of  the  country  to  the  extent  of  $107,000,000 
— an  end  certainly  not  to  be  very  devoutly  wished,  when 
we  already  have  an  excess,  as  already  shown,  of  fifty  per 
cent,  of  the  same.  It  would  result  in  this  inflation  in  the 
following  manner — namely  :  the  first  step  in  the  programme 
is  to  cancel  the  $325,000,000  of  bank  currency ;  the  second, 
to  issue  an  equal  amount  of  new  legal-tenders,  and  with 
them  buy  in  the  bonds  held  at  Washington  to  protect  this 
currency.  Practically  speaking,  the  holders  of  the  bank 
currency  would  get  the  new  legal-tender  notes  in  place  of 
the  former  (the  bank  currency),  and  the  Government  by 
the  operation  would  have  canceled  the  bonds  on  deposit 
(and  drawing  interest,  it  is  true)  for  its  redemption.  Very 
good  !  So  far  there  is  no  inflation  or  contraction.  But  the 
foregoing  acts  abolish  the  National  banks ;  and  these  insti- 
tutions are  now  holding,  as  already  stated  in  a  prior  chapter, 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  139 

$107,000,000  of  legal-tenders  as  a  partial  reserve  for  the 
payment  of  deposits  and  redemption  of  circulation.  This 
sum  lies  inactive  in  the  vaults  of  the  banks,  withdrawn  from 
actual  use  as  a  medium  of  exchange ;  but  destroy  the  banks 
and  you  let  loose  from  their  prison-house  the  above  amount 
of  legal-tenders  to  swell  the  volume  of  our  circulating  me- 
dium. They  are  not  wanted.  The  plan,  in  this  respect, 
would  create  great  disturbance  in  the  commercial  world, 
enhance  the  prices  of  commodities,  thereby  inducing 
reckless  speculation,  and  inflict  a  loss  upon  community 
which  $19,500,000  could  by  no  means  measure,  allowing 
for  the  moment  that  this  amount  of  interest  would  be  saved 
by  the  operation.  The  scheme  is  faulty,  in  the  second  in- 
stance, moreover,  because  it  would  not  result  in  the  saving 
of  this  amount  of  interest.  By  just  so  much  as  the  volume 
of  legal-tenders  is  increased,  in  just  that  relative  ratio  will 
their  value  depreciate.  The  sum-total  of  the  legal-tender 
issue  is  $357,500,000.  Of  this  sum,  $107,000,000,  as  al- 
ready stated,  are  held  by  the  National  banks  as  a  partial  re- 
serve for  the  protection  of  their  deposits  and  circulation, 
thus  leaving  only  $250,500,000  of  these  notes  in  actual  use 
as  lawful  Money.  But  by  the  abolition  of  the  National 
banks,  and  the  consequent  release  of  their  legal-tender  re- 
serve (namely,  $107,000,000),  the  amount  now  in  actual 
circulation  ($250,500,000)  would  be  increased  to  the  extent 
of  forty-one  per  cent.  The  value  of  these  notes  would 
consequently  be  subject  to  a  relative  depreciation.  They 
are  worth  at  the  present  time  (the  close  of  the  year  1871) 
eighty-eight  cents  to  the  dollar.  Reduce  this  valuation 
forty-one  per  cent,  by  an  increase  of  the  amount  in  actual 
circulation  to  that  extent,  and  their  current  worth  would  be 
fifty-two  cents  to  the  dollar.  $325,000,000  of  new  legal- 
tenders,  in  lieu  of  our  bank  currency,  would  consequently 
purchase  $169,000,000  of  Goverhment  bonds.  The  saving 
of  interest  on  these  securities,  as  proposed  by  this  scheme, 


I4O         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

is  consequently  measured  by  a  sum  equal  to  the  interest  on 
$169,000,000,  which  is  $10,140,000.  The  Government 
would  also  gain  by  this  scheme  the  profits  of  circulation  that 
now  result  to  the  banks,  which  by  prior  circulation  (namely, 
the  interest  on  the  amount  of  circulation,  $325,000,000,  at 
six  per  cent.)  amounts  to  $19,500,000.  The  income  resulting 
to  Government  from  an  annual  tax  of  one  per  cent,  on  the 
circulation  of  the  banks  ($325,000,000),  however,  amounts 
to  $3,250.000.  Abolish  the  banks  and  this  means  of  in- 
come to  the  Government  would  be  destroyed.  The  Na- 
tional banks  hold  on  deposit  the  sum  of  $600,000,000.  On 
this  sum  the  Government  levies  an  annual  duty  of  one-half  of 
one  per  cent.,  which  amounts  to  $3,000,000.  Abolish  the 
banks  and  this  source  of  National  revenue  is  lost.  Of  the 
gross  sum  of  banking  capital,  $62,000,000  are  not  invested 
in  National  bonds.  On  this  sum  the  Government  imposes 
an  annual  burden  of  one-half  of  one  per  cent.,  which  amounts 
to  $310,000.  Abolish  the  banks  and  this  right  of  assess- 
ment is  gone.  The  aggregate  capital  stock  of  the  National 
banks  is  about  $500,000,000.  On  this  sum  the  several 
States  lay  a  tax  which  yields  a  yearly  return  of  about 
$12,000,000.  Abolish  the  banks  and  this  State  tax  partici- 
pates in  the  abolition. 

Let  us  now  strike  a  balance  between  our  legal-tender 
friends  and  the  General  Government  in  pursuance  of  this 
scheme,  and  see  what  will  be  the  result : 

The  Legal-  Tender  Notes 

In  Accoimt  with  the  National  Government. 

To  Loss  of  Tax  on  Circulation $3,250,000 

To  Loss  of  Tax  on  Deposits 3,000,000 

To  Loss  of  Tax  on  Capital  not  invested  in  Government 

bonds 31 0,000 

To  Loss  of  State  Tax 12,000,000 

Total $18,560,000 


THE  NATIONAL  BANKING  SYSTEM.  141 

Contra. 

By  Interest  saved  on  Government  bonds $10,140,000 

By  profits  of  Circulation 19,500,000 

Total ^29,640,000 

Balance  in  favor  of  Legal-tenders $11,080,000 

The  above  sum  of  $11,080,000,  not  taking  into  consid- 
eration any  collateral  circumstances,  represents  the  appar- 
ent immediate  saving  which  would  result  to  our  Govern- 
ment from  the  adoption  of  this  legal-tender  scheme.  The 
saving  is,  however,  only  apparent,  and  in  no  respect  real. 
There  are  resulting  circumstances  of  evil  attendant  upon 
this  scheme  for  which  the  paltry  sum  above  named  fur- 
nishes no  adequate  offset.  As  already  seen,  the  proposed 
abolition  of  our  National  banks  and  the  substitution  of 
Legal-tenders  for  their  circulation  would  inflate  our  already 
excessive  issue  of  paper  Money  in  the  sum  of  $107,000,000, 
or  about  sixteen  per  cent.  Our  entire  commercial  interests 
would  suffer  a  relative  disturbance  and  convulsion.  Prices 
would  be  enhanced  in  a  ratio  commensurate  with  the  in- 
crease of  our  paper  currency,  the  creditor  class  of  com- 
munity would  be  mulcted  out  of  sixteen  per  cent,  of  their 
outstanding  debts,  the  laboring  and  agricultural  classes 
^/ould  be  placed  under  heavier  burdens,  as  shown  in  the 
next  preceding  chapter,  and  the  country  would  be 
$  107, ooo, ooo  farther  removed  from  a  resumption  of  specie 
payments.  $11,000,000  nor  $11,000,000,000  would  not 
adjust  the  loss  arising  in  these  various  directions,  saying 
nothing  of  the  general  clamper  and  discouragement  which 
would  be  inevitably  thrown  upon  all  prospective  enterprises. 
There  is,  moreover,  another  aspect  of  the  question.  Our 
National  currency  is  secured  by  interest-bearing  Government 
bonds.  Our  legal-tenders,  materially  speaking,  rest  upon 
no  security  whatever.  A  substitution  of  the  latter  for  the 
former  would  be  a  compromise  of  the  National  honor,  and 


142          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

inflict  merited  and  lasting  injury  upon  the  credit  of  the 
General  Government. 

This  concludes  what  was  intended  for  an  eminently  im- 
partial discussion  of  the  National  banking  system.  Its 
merits  have  been  portrayed,  but  not  exaggerated ;  its  de- 
fects subjected  to  criticism,  and  not  excused.  It  originated 
in  necessity,  and  has  proved  itself  worthy  of  credit,  confi- 
dence and  support.  With  the  limit  upon  circulation  re- 
moved and  the  profits  of  the  same  secured  to  the  people, 
thereby  divesting  it  of  its  character  of  a  monopoly  and 
restricting  it  to  the  legitimate  offices  of  banking — namely, 
deposit  and  discount — it  would  reflect  honor  upon  Amer- 
ican legislation  and  challenge  comparison  with  the  banking 
systems  of  the  entire  world. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

PUBLIC  DEBT  AND  FUNDING  SCHEMES. 

r  I  "*HIS  chapter  will   be   divided   into  two   divisions — 
X       namely,  Division  First  will  treat  of  Public  Debts,  and 
Divison  Second  of  Funding  Schemes. 

DIVISION  FIRST. 

PUBLIC  DEBTS. 

The  -Origin  of  Public  Debt — Historical  View  of  the  Same — The  Causes 
which  impel  Nations  to  run  in  Debt — Public  Debt  in  Europe — How 
Contracted  in  General — The  Different  Expedients  adopted  for  Pay- 
ment of  the  Same — The  Theory  that  a  National  Debt  is  a  National 
Blessing,  Examined — It  is  for  England,  but  not  for  the  United  States 
— It  Depends  upon  the  form  of  Government — Minor  Comment. 

A  National  debt,  although  unknown  to  countries  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  civilization,  has  almost  invariably  become 
the  normal  condition  of  nations  that  have  made  extended 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  143 

advances  from  the  confines  of  barbarism.  The  condition 
of  things  which  surrounded  a  youthful  state  prior  to  and 
during  the  most  of  the  period  known  in  history  as  the 
Middle  Ages  was  very  different  from  that  attendant  upon 
an  infant  government  since  the  dawn  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  During  the  earlier  stages  of  human  progress 
above  referred  to,  the  incentives  to  emulation  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  commercial  pursuits,  the  aggrandizement  of 
territory  and  attainment  of  political  power  were  very  in- 
significant as  compared  with  those  which  were  the  natural 
outgrowth  of  the  final  demolition  of  the  feudal  system 
and  the  advent  of  the  Reformation.  In  these  days  of  limited 
knowledge,  restricted  culture  and  absolute  subserviency  to 
kingly  and  priestly  rule  the  expense  requisite  for  the  main- 
tenance of  government  was,  comparatively  speaking,  trivial 
in  the  extreme.  An  aspiration  by  the  masses  to  either  the 
right  of  property  or  the  privilege  of  thought  was  treason 
on  the  one  hand  and  heresy  on  the  other.  The  feudal 
barons  had  choked  the  first,  and  an  impious  clergy  throttled 
the  last,  beyond  even  the  faintest  show  of  resistance.  As 
the  income  of  the  feudal  barons  was  great,  so  was  that  of 
government  perfectly  enormous  as  compared  with  the 
meagre  outlay  necessary  for  purposes  of  state.  The  spirit 
which  prompted  the  enslavement  of  both  enterprise  and 
thought  was  naturally  associated  with  an  inherent  avarice 
and  miserly  greed.  Governments  prior  to  and  during  the 
Middle  Ages  are  consequently  seen  to  have  been  in  many 
instances  hoarders  of  metallic  wealth  and  treasure.  So  far 
down  as  the  reign  of  Frederick  of  Prussia,  Henry  VI.  of 
England  and  Henry  IV.  of  France  accumulation  of  public 
wealth  marks  the  progress  of  most  of  the  kingdoms  of 
Europe.  The  only  notable  exception  is  Spain,  who  was 
wretchedly  in  debt  at  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
With  the  shackles  stricken  from  thought  and  action,  how- 
ever, the  standard  of  public  as  well  as  private  morals  is 


144         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

strengthened,  and  incentives  to  national  as  well  as  individual 
emulation  are  interwoven  with  all  the  conditions  of  gov- 
ernment and  its  subjects.  At  this  juncture  is  found  the 
origin  of  public  debt,  which  claims  at  least  a  passing  allu- 
sion. 

As  states  or  nations  advance  in  commercial  pursuits, 
their  intercommunication  becomes  constantly  extended, 
their  projects  cross  each  other  in  converging  paths,  and 
the  material  ends  which  different  powers  are  in  search  of 
are,  in  many  instances,  identical.  This  produces  a  conflict 
of  interest,  a  friendly  strife  to  distance  competitors,  outlays 
for  augmentation  of  means  to  secure  the  desired  ends,  the 
courting  of  foreign  favor,  an  increased  efficacy  of  home 
government,  the  establishment  of  internal  improvements, 
and,  very  frequently,  territorial  extension.  All  this,  to  a 
certain  extent,  is  absolutely  imperative ;  and  in  all  this, 
moreover,  public  debt,  in  any  great  measure,  is  rarely  in- 
curred, except  through  incompetent  administration,  as  in 
the  case  of  ancient  Spain.  Accumulation,  however,  in 
such  stages  of  public  advancement  is  next  to.  if  not  quite, 
impossible.  But  in  these  commercial  strides  the  conflicting 
interests  above  named  sometimes  eventuate  in  war,  and 
here,  with  the  absence  of  accumulated  treasure,  is  found  the 
germ  of  national  debt.  The  enormous  expense  attend- 
ant upon  the  prosecution  of  hostilities  compels  govern- 
ments unpossessed  of  hoards  'to  anticipate  their  means  of 
revenue  and  enter  the  money  market  among  the  list  of 
borrowers.  Their  proposals  for  loans,  particularly  in  com- 
mercial countries,  are  in  most  instances  very  easily  acceded 
to.  This  is  true  for  various  reasons.  The  safety  of  com- 
merce and  the  fortunes  of  those  who  have  embarked  in 
commercial  pursuits  is  entirely  dependent  upon  the  preser- 
vation of  government.  It  consequently  becomes  a  com- 
mercial people  to  see  to  it  that  the  demands  of  state  for 
Mon  y  to  maintain  not  only  its  prestige  among  nations,  but 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  145 

its  very  existence  even  should  be  promptly  responded  to. 
It  is,  indeed,  although  a  duty  paramount  to  all  others  that 
require  execution  at  the  hands  of  every  loyal  citizen,  a  mere 
matter  of  individual  and  social  policy — the  simplest  act  of 
self-preservation.  Beside  this  more  important  reason  for 
instantly  supplying  Government  with  one  of  the  main 
sinews  of  war,  there  are  several  minor  ones  which  are  not 
prompted  by  a  sense  of  public  duty,  but  spring  from  mo- 
tives of  individual  greed  and  avarice.  The  demands  of 
Government  for  supplies  and  ammunition  always  tend  to 
stimulate  productive  enterprises  and  extend  the  limits  of 
traffic — the  two  motor  and  major  forces  of  commercial 
states.  The  war-consols  of  Government  always  bear  heavy 
interest,  and  form  a  means  of  security  upon  the  hypotheca- 
tion of  which  their  holders  can  always  obtain  loans  to  any 
amount  and  upon  the  most  liberal  terms.  Commercial 
governments,  accordingly,  always  give  and  accept  the 
challenge  of  war  with  the  utmost  confidence  that,  even 
though  their  cause  be  not  wholly  just,  the  majority  of  their 
subjects  will  grant  them  abundant  and  immediate  support. 
In  addition  to  these  forces  of  public  duty,  self-preservation 
and  individual  greed,  which  rush  to  the  support  of  govern- 
ments engaged  in  war,  there  is  always  an  element  of  national 
pride,  akin  to  loyalty,  which  augments  the  willingness  of  a 
people  to  lend  its  rulers  everyaccessory  that  will  conduce 
to  the  assurance  of  ultimate  triumph.  This  foreknowledge 
of  Government,  so  to  speak,  that  both  material  and  moral 
aid  will  be  placed  at  its  command  for  the  waging  of  either 
a  just  or  an  unjust  war  has  dotted  the  records  of  the  necrolo- 
gist with  many  a  narrative  of  untimely  death,  clouded  the 
escutcheon  of  both  ancient  and  modern  powers  with  shame 
and  dishonor,  and  in  many  instances  consigned  them  to  a 
merited  and  endless  oblivion.  "The  pathway  of  human 
improvement,"  in  the  language  of  an  enthusiastic,  not  to 
say  intemperate,  writer,  "may  have  been  in  all  ages  and 
1.1  U 


146         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

countries  macadamized  with  bones  and  wet  with  blood," 
but  it  is  a  question  not  difficult  of  solution  whether  this 
"pathway"  would  not  ere  this  have  opened  more  extended 
fields  of  civilization,  unfolded  richer  depths  of  science,  and 
familiarized  the  world  more  generally  with  the  beauty  and 
usefulness  of  art,  had  it  been  laid,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
with  less  costly  and  more  inanimate  treasure.  This  truth 
has  received  a  merited  and  long-delayed  appreciation  by 
two  of  the  principal  nations  of  the  world  in  the  conclusion 
of  the  Treaty  of  Washington  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  for  the  adjustment  of  divers  and  conflicting 
claims  of  territory,  treasure  and  national  honor.  Our  late 
civil  war  achieved  the  most  sacred  and  justifiable  victory 
that  has  ever  been  recorded  in  the  annals  of  military  strife. 
The  Franco-Prussian  conflict  of  1870  resulted  in  a  triumph 
which  emblazoned  upon  the  standard  of  Germany  the  most 
brilliant  campaign  since  the  days  of  the  elder  Napoleon, 
exalted  the  new  empire  to  the  foremost  position  in  Europe, 
and  taught  both  the  Continent  and  the  English  isles  that 
educated  thought  is  a  force  far  more  powerful  than  a  pro- 
scribed culture,  an  enslaved  peasantry  and  half-starved 
artisans  ;  but  the  subjugation  of  assertion  to  proof,  of  pas- 
sion to  reason,  of  violence  to  logic,  of  brute  force  to  intel- 
ligent thought,  which  was  witnessed  in  the  submission  of 
the  grave  and  portentous  differences  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  to  an  international  tribunal  for 
final  and  irrevocable  settlement,  is  a  victory  by  the  side  of 
which  military  conquests  pale  into  insignificance,  and  an 
event  of  more  stupendous  import  for  the  cause  of  human 
progress  than  any  that  has  drawn  the  attention  of  mankind 
since  the  advent  of  the  Christian  era. 

The  principal  nations  of  Europe  established  the  custom 
of  incurring  national  debt  in  the  latter  portion  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  for  the  most  part  to  relieve  their 
finance  departments  from  the  pressure  of  existing  war. 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  147 

The  exhaustive  home  and  foreign  struggles  of  that  period 
involved  France,  England  and  Holland  in  expenditures  far 
beyond  the  amount  of  their  immediate  revenues,  and 
incumbered  them  with  liabilities  which  have  never  yet  been 
fully  canceled.  In  the  war  which  commenced  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  in  1668,  and  afterward  extended  to 
the  American  colonies,  and  was  finally  terminated  by  the 
Peace  of  Ryswick  in  1697,  England  for  the  first  time 
assumed  pecuniary  obligation  as  a  government.  At  the 
close  of  the  period  of  hostilities  above  named  the  English 
Government  was  a  debtor  in  the  sum  of  about  fifty  millions 
sterling.  The  Seven  Years'  war,  ending  in  1762,  increased 
this  sum  to  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  sterling, 
and  the  American  Revolution  swelled  this  amount  by  nearly 
one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  more.  The  tremendous 
struggle  with  Napoleon  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  and 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  however,  was  the 
cause  of  its  present  enormous  extension.  The  banishment 
of  the  Corsican  to  St.  Helena,  indeed,  cost  the  English 
Government  over  five  hundred  millions  sterling,  and  its 
present  indebtedness  amounts  to  nearly  $4, 000,000,000. 
Prussia,  in  fact,  was  the  only  kingdom  of  any  considerable 
importance  which  emerged  from  the  convulsions  of  the 
eighteenth  century  with  insignificant  pecuniary  liabilities. 

Public  debts  have  been  contracted  by  nations  in  much 
the  same  form  and  manner  as  private  ones  by  individuals. 
European  nations  have  invariably  borrowed,  at  first,  with- 
out security,  upon  their  mere  corporate  credit.  This  por- 
tion of  the  liabilities  which  are  still  outstanding  against 
the  different  governments  'of  Europe  constitutes  what  is 
termed  the  unfunded  debt  of  these  countries.  They  consist 
of  mere  Government  notes  of  hand,  like  the  promissory 
note  of  an  individual.  From  this  incipient  stage  of 
national  indebtedness  the  empires  of  the  Old  World  have 
proceeded  to  make  loans  by  mortgaging  the  public  reve- 


148          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

nues ;  and  this  has  been  done  by  two  different  methods. 
The  first  of  these  methods  has  been  to  mortgage  a  particular 
source  of  revenue  for  a  short  period  only,  and  the  fund 
mortgaged  was  predicated  to  be  sufficient  to  pay  both  the 
principal  and  interest  of  the  debt  at  the  expiration  of  such 
period.  This  is  properly  designated  a  loan  by  anticipation. 
The  second  of  these  methods  has  been  to  mortgage  a  par- 
ticular source  of  revenue  for  perpetuity,  and  the  fund 
mortgaged  was  only  predicated  as  sufficient  to  pay  the 
interest  upon  the  debt  incurred.  This  method  is  properly 
known  as  funding,  and  will  be  fully  considered  in  the  second 
division  of  this  chapter.  An  instance  of  the  first  method  is 
seen  in  an  ancient  custom  of  France  which  was  known  by 
the  title  of ' '  farming  the  revenues. ' '  This  was  done  by  mort- 
gaging  to  capitalists  the  right  to  collect  certain  taxes  from 
the  people,  in  pursuance  of  an  assessment  of  Government, 
for  a  given  number  of  years.  For  instance,  if  the  Govern- 
ment laid  an  annual  tax  upon  distilleries  or  any  other 
species  of  industry,  which  amounted,  say,  to  $1,000,000, 
this  tax  would  be  "  farmed  "  out  to  capitalists  in  the  man- 
ner above  named,  for  say  twenty  years,  upon  payment  by 
them  to  Government  of  $20,000,000,  less  the  amount  of 
interest  charged  for  the  loan.  A  subsequent  method 
adopted  by  European  nations  in  contracting  public  debt 
has  been  by  the  sale  of  annuities  for  lives  or  years.  This 
is  also  a  species  of  funding,  and  its  full  consideration 
belongs  to  the  second  division  of  this  chapter.  A  great 
portion  of  the  early  public  debt  of  France  was  contracted 
in  this  manner.  The  United  States  have  contracted  public 
indebtedness,  for  the  most  part,  upon  their  corporate  credit 
as  first  above  described,  and  by  the  sale  of  interest-bearing 
Government  bonds,  with  the  privilege  of  redemption  at 
par  at  any  time  within  certain  specified  limits.  That  por- 
tion of  our  debt  contracted  upon  corporate  credit  corre- 
sponds to  the  unfunded  debt  of  European  nations,  and  is 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  149 

very  truthfully  and  emphatically  illustrated  by  our  legal- 
tender  notes.  Instances  of  the  last-named  species  of 
United  States  indebtedness  are  found  in  the  five-twenty 
and  othe^r  bonds  of  Government. 

The  means  for  payment  of  national  debts,  and  the  ex- 
pediency of  such  a  policy,  have  been  prolific  sources  of 
both  public  and  private  discussion.  Nations,  like  indi- 
viduals, have  found  it  much  easier  to  incur  pecuniary 
liability  than  to  obtain  a  release  therefrom  by  a  full  dis- 
charge of  such  obligations.  National  debts,  indeed,  when 
augmented  to  any  considerable  extent,  have  never,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  been  entirely  paid.  The  attempts  of 
governments  in  this  direction,  and  the  means  resorted  to 
for  the  attainment  of  such  an  end,  have  in  many  instances 
reflected  great  discredit,  if  not  absolute  dishonor,  upon 
some  of  the  leading  powers  of  the  Old  World.  History  is 
replete  with  illustrations  of  this  character,  and  a  few  of  the 
most  noticeable  will  receive  a  passing  allusion.  Reference 
will  be  first  had  to  the  plan  adopted  by  European  govern- 
ments of  reducing  their  public  debt  by  means  of  "raising 
the  coin  denomination."  This  is  the  technical  term  affixed 
to  this  would-be  economic  institution  by  its  founders.  It 
is  a  process,  however,  akin  to  "watering  stock,"  and  is  an 
act  which,  "when  done  with  a  less  dainty  grace,  plain 
folks  call  theft."  It  consists  in  a  diminution  of  the  quan- 
tity of  precious  metals  which  enter  into  the  composition  of 
the  current  coins  of  Government.  For  instance,  if  twenty 
grains  of  pure  coined  gold  had  passed  current  for  one 
dollar,  Government  might  "raise  the  denomination"  by 
decreeing  that  fifteen  grains  of  coined  gold  should  there- 
after constitute  a  circulating  symbol  of  the  value  above 
named.  In  this  way  Government  would  reduce  its  indebted- 
ness twenty-five  per  cent,  or  one-fourth,  for,  as  the  same  was 
incurred  upon  a  basis  of  twenty  grains  of  gold  to  the  dollar, 
it  compels  its  creditors  to  receive  fifteen  grains  of  that 
is  • 


ISO         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

metal  for  the  discharge  of  an  obligation  which  originally 
promised  twenty  grains.  The  ancient  republic  of  Rome 
furnishes  history  with  one  of  the  earliest  instances  of  this 
method  of  canceling  public  indebtedness.  The,  as  was 
the  principal  current  coin  of  this  nation,  and  by  it  the 
value  of  all  the  other  Roman  coins  was  estimated.  It 
originally  contained  twelve  ounces  of  copper,  but  at  the 
close  of  the  first  Punic  War,  B.  C.  256,  which  left  the  re- 
public greatly  in  debt,  the  denomination  of  this  coin  was 
"raised"  by  decreeing  that  two  ounces  of  this  metal 
should  thereafter  constitute  the  circulating  symbol  above 
named.  This  reduction  of  the  Roman  as  of  course  re- 
duced the  debt  of  the  republic  to  one-sixth  of  its  original 
amount.  King  John  of  France,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
added  not  a  little  to  the  efficiency  of  this  method  of  can- 
celing public  indebtedness  by  associating  an  "adulteration 
of  the  standard"  with  the  raising  of  the  denomination;  that 
is,  he  increased  the  amount  of  alloy  in  the  current  coinage 
of  his  kingdom.  For  example,  if  the  composition  of  a  five- 
franc  piece  consisted  of  four-fifths  pure  metal  and  one-fifth 
alloy,  the  standard  would  be  adulterated  by  changing  this 
composition  to  say  three-fifths  pure  metal  and  two-fifths 
alloy.  For  the  purpose  of  reducing  his  immense  public 
debt  the  French  king  resorted  to  both  these  expedients  of 
raising  the  denomination  and  adulterating  the  standard. 
The  unique  and  creditable  method  of  canceling  a  public 
debt  by  raising  the  denomination,  which  originated  with 
the  Roman  republic,  was  seemingly  of  sufficient  adequacy 
to  commend  itself  to  the  judgment  of  all  the  nations  of 
Europe ;  but  not  till  King  John  had  nursed  this  youthful 
paymaster  of  the  Romans  to  mature  manhood,  as  above 
described,  did  our  English  cousins  appreciate  the  desira- 
bleness of  the  institution.  The  idea,  however,  crossed  the 
English  Channel  in  1545,  and  Henry  VIII.  fittingly  con- 
cluded the  long  list  of  pious  acts  which  had  characterized 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  I$I 

his  reign  by  religiously  following  the  example  of  his  French 
neighbor,  in  raising  the  denomination  and  adulterating  the 
standard  of  the  English  coin.  Scotland,  also,  under  the 
reign  of  James  VI.,  adopted  the  same  harmless  expedient, 
but  the  mysteries  of  the  science  have  not  been  sufficiently 
explored  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  to  result  in  its  adoption 
by  the  United  States,  although,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  next 
succeeding  chapter,  plans  no  less  subtle  and  comprehensive 
have  been  proposed  for  the  payment  of  our  present  national 
debt.  The  period  of  their  incubation,  however,. measured 
the  entire  limit  of  their  existence,  and  efforts  for  their  re- 
suscitation seem  wellnigh  abandoned. 

The  policy  of  paying,  or  even  reducing,  a  public  debt,  as 
already  indicated,  has  been  gravely  questioned  by  some  of 
the  oldest  governments  and  most  experienced  statesmen. 
The  idea  of  leaving  the  principal  of  such  indebtedness  for 
ever  intact,  and  merely  paying  the  interest,  has  received 
stronger  indorsement  from  Great  Britain  than  any  other 
country.  The  theory  is  there  upheld,  familiar  to  all  by  its 
title  at  least,  that  "a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing." 
The  question  is  one  of  the  gravest  possible  import,  and  an 
examination  of  the  same  may  be  safely  prefaced  with  the  as- 
sertion that  the  foregoing  English  doctrine  will  not  admit 
of  being  reduced  to  a  maxim  which  should  have  universal 
application.  The  question  of  the  feasibility  of  a  public 
debt  is  a  matter  of  public  policy,  and  the  shaping  of  such 
policy  is  dependent  upon  the  peculiar  circumstances  and 
conditions  of  both  governments  and  people.  As  Chan- 
cellor Kent  has  tersely  expressed  it,  "  Policy  is  a  series  of 
calculations  and  combinations  arising  out  of  times,  places 
and  circumstances,  and  it  cannot  be  reduced  to  absolute 
simplicity  and  certainty."  The  English  Government  is 
that  of  a  constitutional  monarchy.  By  force  of  tradition,  and 
also  its  organic,  constitutional  and  municipal  law,  it  scouts 
every  idea  of  change  and  innovation.  It  contemplates  a 


152         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

perpetual  and  changeless  existence.  It  is,  for  all  this,  in  a 
great  measure,  by  force  of  guarantees  in  its  organic  law,  a 
government  of  the  people,  and  one  of  the  grandest  fabrics 
of  government,  moreover,  which  the  mind  of  man  has 
ever  deduced  from  the  experience  of  the  civilized  world. 
From  the  people,  to  a  great  extent,  it  derives  its  power,  and 
upon  them  it  is  partially  dependent  for  the  continuance  of 
its  reign.  In  consequence  of  these  facts  it  becomes  the 
paramount  interest  of  the  English  Government  to  make  its 
continuance  an  absolute  prerequisite  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  people ;  and  for  the  attainment  of  this  end  it  has,  for 
a  long  period  (nearly  two  hundred  years),  pursued  and 
cherished  the  policy  of  having  an  outstanding  public  debt. 
Great  Britain  owes  nearly  $4,000,000,000.  The  Govern- 
ment obligations  which  form  the  evidences  of  this  indebt- 
edness constitute  the  basis  of  many  of  the  most  stupendous 
industrial  schemes  of  the  English  people,  and  make  up  a 
large  portion  of  many  of  the  fortunes  of  English  capitalists. 
The  continuance  of  the  present  Government  of  Great 
Britain  has  thus  been  made  one  of  the  dearest  objects  of 
the  care  of  a  major  portion  of  her  moneyed  and  aristocratic 
classes — the  motor  forces  of  the  English  realm — by  foster- 
ing the  policy  of  a  public  debt. 

The  principle  upon  which  the  idea  is  founded,  however, 
that  "a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing,"  tends  to  the 
seduction  of  national  honor.  A  people  whose  individual 
interests  are  entirely  merged  in  the  existence  of  their  gov- 
ernment usually  protest  against  giving  or  accepting  the 
challenge  of  war,  however  just  may  be  the  provocation,  for 
fear  of  national,  and  consequently  individual,  overthrow. 
The  Government  of  Great  Britain  has  not  escaped  the  evils 
of  a  public  debt  in  this  respect.  The  convention  of  1856 
which  followed  the  close  of  the  Crimean  war,  and  to  which 
the  English  and  Russian  Governments,  with  other  Euro- 
pean powers,  were  parties,  was  peremptorily  dissolved  in 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  153 

1870  by  the  emperor  of  Russia,  so  far  as  her  exclusion 
from  the  Bosphorus  was  concerned,  without  even  a  prelimi- 
nary request  for  a  modification  of  the  treaty ;  and  this  fla- 
grant violation  of  international  law  the  English  people 
would  not  suffer  their  Government  to  resent. 

Under  a  democratic  or  republican  form  of  government 
the  question  of  a  public  debt  presents  itself  in  an  entirely 
different  aspect ;  and  the  claim  that  it  is  "a  national  bless- 
ing" may,  in  this  connection,  be  gravely  doubted,  if  not 
positively  denied.  The  abstract  proposition  that  the  sup- 
port of  government  constitutes  one  of  the  most  politic 
duties  of  every  people  admits  of  no  contradiction.  It  is  a 
self-evident  truth.  There  is  a  marked  distinction,  however, 
in  the  application  of  this  principle  to  republican  or  demo- 
cratic and  monarchical  forms  of  government.  Republican 
and  democratic  institutions  are  based  upon  the  theory  that, 
while  the  form  of  government  shall  remain  fixed  and  im- 
movable, the  executive  power  which  administers  the  gov- 
ernment shall  be  subject  to  frequent  and  regular  changes. 
Monarchical  institutions,  however,  whether  absolute  or 
limited,  are  based  upon  the  theory  that  not  only  the  form 
of  government,  but  also  the  executive  power  which  admin- 
isters it,  shall  be  alike  permanent  and  unchangeable.  In 
the  former  case,  the  individual,  comparatively  speaking,  is 
only  interested  in  maintaining  the  government  itself:  the 
preservation  of  the  same  identical  executive  power  is  a 
matter  of  little  or  no  consequence.  The  government  can 
live  though  the  executive  die;  the  organic  law  can  con- 
tinue though  its  administrator  be  changed.  In  the  latter 
case,  however,  in  most  instances,  the  government  and  the 
executive  power,  speaking  in  the  abstract,  are  wedded  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  divorcement,  except  at  the  expense 
of  the  former's  annihilation.  They  are  integral  parts  of 
one  common  whole,  and  are  both  requisite  for  its  continu- 
ance. If  the  executive  changes,  it  is  only  in  response  to 

G2 


154         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

a  demand  for  a  change  of  organic  law,  and  such  executive 
variation  consequently  involves  an  inevitable  revolution  of 
the  form  of  government.  The  individual,  in  this  instance, 
is  therefore  interested  not  only  to  preserve  the  Government 
in  its  stability,  but  also  to  maintain  the  same  identical  exe- 
cutive power  in  perpetual  continuance ;  and  this  is  done 
by  legalized  succession.  These  distinctive  features  in  re- 
publican or  democratic  and  monarchical  forms  of  govern- 
ment destroy  the  universality  of  the  would-be  maxim  that 
"a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing."  In  the  former 
instance  a  public  debt  is  associated  solely  with  the  Govern- 
ment, and  not  in  any  inseparable  manner  with  the  execu- 
tive. The  maintenance  of  Government  or  a  due  regard 
for  the  sacredness  of  its  pecuniary  liabilities  does  not  in 
any  way  imply  a  maintenance  or  indorsement  of  the  execu- 
tive power.  This  last  must  change,  whether  it  will  or  no. 
In  accordance  with  the  genius  and  spirit  of  republican  and 
democratic  institutions,  moreover,  this  change  is  effected 
without  any  shock  to  Government  itself — to  organic  con- 
stitutional law.  A  public  debt  in  republican  and  demo- 
cratic countries,  then,  can  only  draw  the  support  of  the 
people  to  Government  and  not  to  executive  power.  The 
question  is  here  pertinent,  Can  the  support  of  a  democratic 
or  republican  people  for  their  Government  only  be  assured 
by  making  them  financial  creditors  of  such  Government? 
By  no  means ;  and  the  reason  is  simple,  plain  and  easy  to 
be  understood.  A  republican  or  democratic  form  of  gov- 
ernment is  the  great  desideratum  of  every  people  on  the 
face  of  the  globe.  It  is  counted  to  be  the  synonym  of  the 
most  perfect  and  unqualified  personal  liberty — a  liberty 
qualified  by  legal  restraint  only  to  the  extent  of  giving 
security  to  life  and  property.  Will  a  people  who  possess 
what  is  believed  to  be  the  most  lenient  and  liberal  govern- 
ment ever  established  wish  for  a  different  one  ?  Not  at  all. 
An  affirmation  of  this  question  denies  the  most  common 


PUBLIC  DEBTS.  155 

instinct  of  humanity.  The  law  of  change,  either  among 
individuals  or  nations,  is  based  upon  the  hope  of  a  better- 
ment of  present  condition.  Destroy  republican  govern- 
ment, and  where  shall  we  find  its  superior?  Neither  the 
experience  nor  ingenuity  of  man  can  at  present  afford  an 
answer.  Is  a  public  debt,  then,  necessary  to  increase  the 
love  of  a  people  for  a  Government  for  whose  superior  they 
seek  in  vain  ?  Nay  more :  Will  such  an  incumbrance 
enhance  the  splendor  of  an  institution  which  without  such 
incumbrance  is  esteemed  perfect  ?  Perfection  is  not  thus 
beautified.  The  argument  that  "a  national  debt  is  a 
national  blessing,"  so  far  as  republican  and  democratic 
institutions  are  concerned,  recoils  upon  itself.  A  public 
debt  for  such  governments  is  but  a  cloud  upon  the  title  of 
their  desirability. 

In  monarchical  governments  it  is  different.  A  public 
debt  is  here  associated  with  both  the  government  and  the 
executive  power.  A  maintenance  of  the  first  and  a  due 
regard  for  the  sacredness  of  the  second  imply  a  continuance 
of  the  third.  Destroy  monarchical  government,  and  its 
subjects  implicitly  believe  they  can  find  a  better  in  repub- 
lican institutions ;  but  destroy  monarchical  government 
with  the  major  portion  of  the  wealth  of  its  subjects  invested 
in  Government  securities,  and  you  also  destroy  the  dearest 
interest  of  these  subjects — namely,  their  property.  As  a 
watchman  who  shall  guard  the  door  of  exit  between  a  mon- 
archy and  a  republic,  "a  national  debt  may  be  a  national 
blessing,"  but  what  need  of  this  watchman  at  the  closing 
portal  of  republican  government?  The  dim  future  is  unex- 
plored by  man  and  enveloped  in  all  the  mists  of  obscurity. 

These  principles  have  found  constant  and  continued  prac- 
tical expression  in  the  form  into  which  monarchical  and 
republican  indebtedness  has  been  funded.  The  former  has 
ever  been  made  perpetual,  the  latter  finite  and  determin- 
able. 


1 56         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

As  public  debts  have  been  incurred,  for  the  most  part, 
only  in  time  of  war,  and  as  history  has  proven,  moreover, 
that  the  resources  of  nearly  every  country  which  has  been 
involved  in  hostilities  might  have  yielded  a  sufficient  return 
from  taxation  without  jeopardizing  the  solvency  of  the  peo- 
ple to  meet  the  expenses  of  war  as  they  arose,  the  question 
is  often  asked,  Why  contract  a  public  debt  in  any  instance  ? 
Why  not  pay  as  we  go?  There  is  only  one  reason,  but 
that  is  a  very  grave  and  important  one.  In  an  era  of  ex- 
tended hostilities  there  is  always  more  or  less  dissatisfaction 
with  Government  among  a  certain  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation. The  party  opposed  in  politics  to  the  one  in  power 
will  always  loudly  protest  against  taxation  for  war-expenses, 
and  as  there  is  no  point  upon  which  the  masses  are  so  sen- 
sitive as  the  appropriation  of  their  wages  and  profits,  Gov- 
ernment is  absolutely  compelled  to  make  its  tax  levies  as 
light  as  possible,  else  the  discontented  element  will  reach 
such  proportions  as  to  entirely  cripple  the  resources  of 
Government  and  add  civil  revolution  to  the  evils  of  foreign 
war.  This  thought  will  be  farther  pursued  in  the  next  suc- 
ceding  chapter. 


DIVISION  SECOND. 

FUNDING  SCHEMES. 

Nature  and  Origin — Funding  defined — Details  examined — Sinking 
Funds — Historical  View  of  the  Subject — The  Results  of  Funding — 
The  Various  Schemes  fully  examined — Opinions  of  Eminent 
Writers  upon  the  same. 

THE  process  of  funding  among  nations  has  ever  been  a 
favorite  method  of  escaping  from  the  embarrassment  of  a 
floating  debt  of  matured  and  dishonored  obligations.  It 
has  always,  moreover,  been  a  very  expensive  means  of  re- 
lease from  such  embarrassments.  Nations,  like  individu- 


FUNDING   SCHEMES.  1 57 

als,  always  place  a  high  estimate  upon  the  probabilities  and 
possibilities  of  the  future.  In  this  land  of  the  unseen  they 
discover  a  panacea  for  all  present  difficulties,  a  full  and 
final  discharge  from  the  struggle  of  surrounding  circum- 
stances. The  past  is  deemed  a  misfortune,  if  not  an  injus- 
tice ;  the  present  is  counted  an  anachronism ;  and  the  future 
is  alone  credited  as  the  agency  which  shall  blot  out  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  past,  banish  the  inconsistencies  of  the  pres- 
ent and  shower  wealth  upon  the  efforts  which  have  hitherto 
been  robbed  of  their  just  reward.  As  William  Hamilton 
forcibly  says,  "The  past  does  not  interest,  the  present  does 
not  satisfy,  the  future  alone  is  the  object  which  engages 
us."  In  the  funding  of  a  public  debt  nations  always  dis- 
count these  expectations  of  the  future  at  a  heavy  rate  of  in- 
terest— they  mortgage  its  prospective  returns  at  an  almost 
ruinous  sacrifice.  This  is  true  partly  from  compulsion  and 
partly  from  causes  above  intimated.  Human  nature,  in  the 
presence  of  difficulties  which  must  be  removed  by  means 
of  present  exertion  and  self-denial,  or  else  evaded  by  a  pur- 
chased postponement  wherein  the  period  of  payment  for 
such  purchase  is  also  in  futuro,  is  generally  conservative  in 
its  action  and  adopts  the  latter  alternative ;  but  in  the  pur- 
suance of  this  alternative  it  is  radical  in  its  conduct  and 
pays  dearly  for  the  favor  of  time.  These  general  remarks 
foreshadow  the  character,  causes  and  evils  of  a  funding 
scheme.  They  will  now  be  examined  in  detail. 

The  interrogatory,  In  what  does  a  funding  scheme  con- 
sist ?  may  be  answered  in  a  general  sense  by  the  statement 
that  it  is  the  merger  or  conversion  of  a  past  due,  unsecured 
debt  into  an  interest-bearing  obligation  or  security  upon 
the  predication  of  regular  payments  of  the  yearly  interest 
thereon,  with  the  time  for  payment  of  the  principal  post- 
poned either  for  perpetuity  or  a  fixed  determinate  period. 
Funding  schemes  always  assume  one  of  these  two  forms, 
with  the  usual  qualification  that  Government  may  redeem 
II 


158         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  obligation  at  option,  within  specified  limits,  upon  pay- 
ment of  the  principal  at  par.  This  optional  limit  varies 
according  as  the  date  of  maturity  of  the  obligation  is  de- 
terminately  fixed  or  postponed  for  perpetuity.  In  the  first 
instance  it  usually  embraces  the  time  between  the  end  of 
five,  ten  or  any  number  of  years,  as  the  case  may  be,  after 
the  date  of  the  obligation  and  the  period  fixed  for  its  ma- 
turity. In  the  second  instance  this  option  usually  attaches 
concurrently  with  the  date  of  the  security,  and  may  be 
acted  on  at  any  time  thereafter.  These  two  forms  of  fund- 
ing, moreover,  may  either  assume  the  shape  of  a  mortgage 
of  a  particular  source  of  revenue  to  the  Government,  or  the 
execution  of  the  Government's  bond,  which  by  force  of  law 
creates  a  lien,  an  incumbrance,  upon  all  the  material  wealth 
of  the  country  as  security  for  its  payment.  In  both  in- 
stances, therefore,  the  security  is  abundant  and  unexcep- 
tionable, since,  by  exercise  of  the  right  of  taxation,  the 
Government  can  legally  appropriate  the  entire  wealth  of  the 
country  on  the  one  hand,  and  mortgage  the  same  by  its 
bond  on  the  other.  The  par  at  which  Government  has 
the  optional  right  of  redemption  may  be,  but  is  not  neces- 
sarily, the  sum  of  Money  which  Government  originally  re- 
ceived, but  is  the  amount  stamped  upon  its  bond  or  mort- 
gage ;  and  these  two  sums  are  scarcely  ever  the  same.  For 
instance,  Government  may  have  an  outstanding  debt  of 
$50,000,000  to  fund,  and  for  this  purpose  it  will  sell  its 
bonds  of  say  $1000  each  at  six  per  cent,  interest,  to  pay 
the  $50,000,000  of  its  past  due  liabilities.  These  bonds 
will  usually  sell  at  a  discount,  say  ten  per  cent.,  so  that  for 
every  $1000  bond  issued  Government  would  only  receive 
$900.  The  par  at  which  it  would  have  the  option  to  re- 
deem, however,  would  be  $1000.  The  result  of  the  trans- 
action is  therefore  seen  to  be,  that  Government  gives  its 
notes — bonds — and  agrees  to  pay  interest  thereon,  in  the 
sum  of  nearly  $56,000,000,  and  receives  only  $50,000,000 


FUNDING  SCHEMES.  159 

in  ready  Money  therefor.  The  foregoing  propositions 
cover  the  ground  and  theory  of  both  determinate  and  per- 
petual annuities  which  have  so  much  prevailed  in  the  fund- 
ing schemes  of  Europe,  as  well  as  the  American  system. 
Illustrations  of  the  former  might  be  adduced,  but  the  prin- 
ciples involved  are  not  sufficiently  obscure  to  provoke  such 
a  line  of  discussion. 

A  definition  of  what  is  known  as  a  sinking  fund  finds  an 
appropriate  place  in  this  connection.  A  sinking  fund  is 
raised  by  a  transfer  to  commissioners,  appointed  for  that 
purpose,  of  bonds  or  other  obligations  which  Government 
has  redeemed,  upon  which  canceled  securities  such  com- 
missioners are  paid  regular  interest  by  Government.  The 
sum  thus  received  by  the  commissioners  is  appropriated  for 
the  purchase  of  additional  securities  of  Government,  to  be 
by  them  held  for  the  same  purpose  as  above  indicated — 
namely,  the  collection  of  interest  and  the  consequent  aug- 
mentation of  the  original  fund.  In  this  way  the  amount 
of  such  a  fund  is  regularly  compounded. 

Returning  to  the  more  immediate  topic  of  discussion,  a 
brief  space  will  be  devoted  to  tracing  the  more  important 
eras  of  funding  as  found  upon  the  pages  of  history.  The 
system  was  inaugurated  by  the  Italian  states  in  the  latter 
portion  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  eagerly  followed 
by  Spain,  whose  financial  condition,  as  stated  in  the  first 
division  of  this  chapter,  was  wretched  in  the  extreme. 
France  soon  after  availed  herself  of  its  apparent  advantages, 
and  was  in  turn  followed  by  England,  and  subsequently  by 
most  of  the  principal  powers  of  Europe.  The  dawn  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  in  fact,  witnessed  the  sale  or  mort- 
gage of  its  expectations  by  nearly  every  kingdom  of  the 
Old  World.  The  system  found  the  initiative  in  France  in 
the  "farming  of  the  revenues"  hereinbefore  explained. 
This  led  in  1661  to  the  first  issue  of  perpetual  annuities — 
to  the  plan  of  funding  which  only  contemplates  a  payment 


l6o          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  interest,  and  puts  the  principal  of  a  debt  into  the  form 
of  a  perpetual  loan.  The  idea  found  its  origin  in  the 
fertile  brain  of  Colbert,  the  astute  and  indomitable  minister 
of  Louis  XIV.  The  excesses,  wars  and  extravagances  of 
his  imperial  master  had  flooded  the  kingdom  with  numer- 
ous species  of  unfunded  obligations,  and  the  public 
creditors  were  clamoring  for  redress.  This  unfunded 
indebtedness  of  France,  moreover,  consisted  mostly  of 
mortgages  of  particular  sources  of  revenue,  as  already 
explained,  which  had  been  made  at  an  enormous  sacrifice ; 
that  is,  the  Government  had  sold  the  prospective  proceeds 
of  its  assessments  for  sums  far  below  what  such  assessments 
would  realize.  The  situation  was  mastered  by  the  French 
minister  with  almost  more  than  the  accustomed  determi- 
nation of  purpose  with  which  he  is  credited  in  history,  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  a  less  resolute  hand  would  have  even 
proposed  the  scheme,  much  less  put  it  into  execution, 
without  having  been  rewarded  by  a  public  demonstration 
in  his  favor  at  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  wherein  he  and  a 
headsman  would  have  proved  the  principal  actors.  Colbert 
imperatively  demanded  and  compelled  the  public  creditors 
to  accept  the  proposal  of  Government  to  fund  its  outstand- 
ing debt  in  a  perpetual  loan,  the  par  of  which  should  be 
the  actual  sum  which  they  had  originally  loaned  the 
Government,  and  not  the  sum  stamped  upon  the  face  of 
the  outstanding  obligations.  The  scheme,  consequently, 
not  only  made  a  temporary  loan  a  perpetual  one,  but 
denied  the  public  creditors  the  profit  which  was  promised 
them  as  measured  by  the  difference  between  the  sum  they 
had  paid  the  Government  for  its  determinable  securities 
and  the  amount  which  was  promised  on  their  face.  The 
wily  minister  was  loudly  censured  for  breach  of  national 
honor,  but  only  censured,  and  the  scheme  was  carried  to 
successful  execution. 

The  process  of  funding  was  established  in  Great  Britain 


FUNDING  SCHEMES.  l6l 

in  much  the  same  manner  as  upon  the  Continent.  It  first 
assumed  the  form  of  terminable  annuities,  as  already 
explained,  but  since  the  revolution  of  1688  and  the 
accession  of  William  of  Orange  the  pecuniary  liabilities 
of  Great  Britain  have  always  been  funded  in  a  perpetual 
loan.  The  above-named  monarch  inaugurated  the  principle 
in  the  English  realm,  as  Colbert  had  done  in  France  nearly 
thirty  years  before  him,  except  that  the  par  of  the  per- 
petual annuities  of  this  country  is  the  sum  stamped  upon 
their  face,  and  not  that  actually  received  by  Government, 
which  has  always  been  considerably  less  than  the  face  of 
the  obligation.  William  III.  inaugurated  this  system  of 
funding  the  public  debt  of  Great  Britain  in  a  perpetual  loan 
in  1694,  by  chartering  the  Bank  of  England  with  a  per- 
petual annuity  of  ^80,000  in  consideration  of  a  loan  to 
Government  of  ^1,200,000.  This  measure  of  the  new 
king,  moreover,  was  immediately  preceded  by  a  repudia- 
tion of  the  public  debt  incurred  by  his  predecessors,  the 
Stuarts,  and  upon  those  contracted  during  his  own  reign 
the  English  people  are  still  paying  interest. 

This  examination  of  the  nature  and  history  of  public 
debts  and  funding  schemes,  although  necessarily  brief,  has 
been  sufficiently  extended  to  present  a  general  and  intelli- 
gible outline  of  the  subject  in  the  abstract  preparatory  to 
an  investigation  in  the  next  succeeding  chapter  of  the  pub- 
lic debt  and  funding  system  of  this  country.  A  little  ad- 
ditional comment  will  be  made  upon  the  general  effects  of 
funding,  when  the  present  chapter  will  be  brought  to  a  con- 
clusion. 

The  system  has  always  been  enervating  in  its  tendencies 
and  prejudicial  to  the  general  welfare  of  community,  except 
when  conducted  on  the  principle  of  making  the  Govern- 
ment securities  into  which  a  debt  is  funded  terminable 
and  not  perpetual.  In  the  first  instance,  the  public  consols 
will  usually  sell  at  a  trivial  discount,  and  thus  avoid  any 

14  • 


1 62         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

very  material  enhancement  of  the  debt  by  the  process  of 
funding ;  but  in  the  second  instance  these  securities  have 
always  been  sold  at  an  enormous  sacrifice,  and  thus  greatly 
augmented  the  amount  of  the  original  claim  against  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  only  by  such  a  deduction  from  the  face  of 
these  perpetual  annuities  of  Government,  indeed,  that  their 
sale  can  be  effected.  Capitalists  will  not  invest  their  funds 
in  a  security  the  form  of  which  can  never  be  changed  ex- 
cept upon  payment  of  a  heavy  consideration,  and  this  they 
receive  by  buying  the  perpetual  consols  of  Government  for 
a  considerably  smaller  sum  than  their  face,  and  conse- 
quently a  sum  considerably  less  than  that  upon  which  they 
receive  interest.  In  this  manner  of  funding  by  perpetual 
annuities  a  public  debt  becomes  very  materially  increased 
beyond  its  original  proportions.  The  public  debt  of  Great 
Britain,  for  instance,  by  means  of  the  establishment  of 
these  perpetual  funds  since  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  has 
been  increased  nearly  one-third ;  and  thus  the  only  consid- 
eration which  the  British  Government  has  received  for  con- 
siderably over  $1,000,000,000  of  its  public  consols  has  been 
the  privilege  of  entailing  a  perpetual  debt  upon  posterity, 
and  the  consequent  assurance,  as  already  explained,  of  a 
perpetuation  of  its  peculiar  form  of  government.  This  is 
not  all.  These  perpetual  annuities  are  but  so  many  mort- 
gages upon  the  wealth  of  the  British  people.  They  are 
supported  by  no  security  save  the  general  credit  of  Gov- 
ernment ;  they  constitute  a  lien — an  incumbrance — upon 
all  the  private  as  well  as  public  property  of  the  realm,  as 
already  stated ;  and  if  an  attempt  should  be  made  for  the 
payment  of  these  perpetual  annuities,  the  end  could  only  be 
secured  by  an  appropriation  of  private  property  through 
the  exercise  of  the  right  of  taxation. 

The  principle  upon  which  a  perpetual  public  indebted- 
ness is  based  cannot  but  be  perfectly  apparent  in  the  light 
of  these  indisputable  facts.  Such  indebtedness  has  ever 


FUNDING  SCHEMES.  163 

prevailed  in  monarchical  governments — seldom  in  repub- 
lics and  democracies.  It  has  been  fostered  in  the  former 
instance  in  order  to  close  the  portals  between  monarchical 
and  republican  institutions.  It  has  not  found  favor  in  the 
latter,  because  the  world  has  as  yet  made  no  exploration 
into  the  science  of  government  whereby  it  has  found  such 
effectual  guarantees  for  individual  liberty,  personal  security 
and  right  of  property  as  are  afforded  in  the  scheme  of  a 
government  by  the  people.  And  here,  as  already  indicated 
in  an  earlier  stage  of  this  discussion,  since  no  watchman  in 
the  form  of  a  public  debt  is  needed  to  cement  the  attach- 
ment of  a  republican  population  for  their  organic  law — to 
hold  them  prisoners  of  policy  against  the  dictation  of 
natural  desire — such  indebtedness  is  not  a  national  blessing, 
but  an  incumbrance  upon  the  wealth  and  a  damper  upon 
the  enterprise  and  virtue  of  community. 

The  system  of  funding  outstanding  obligations  of  Govern- 
ment into  a  perpetual  public  debt  has  received  merited  and 
scathing  rebuke,  by  reason  of  its  disadvantages,  above 
enumerated  and  explained,  from  the  most  eminent  jurists 
and  political  economists  of  both  the  Old  and  New  World. 
William  Blackstone  pronounced  upon  it  the  curse  of  the 
finest  legal  intellect  which  has  graced  the  jurisprudence  of 
England ;  Adam  Smith,  after  ten  years  of  reflection  and 
study  thereon,  declared  it  an  anachronism  and  a  reproach 
upon  European  and  English  politics;  Ricardo  reviewed 
it  in  terms  of  the  most  withering  criticism ;  Hume, 
McCulloch  and  Mill  reiterated  the  same  condemnation  ; 
while  in  our  own  country  Francis  Bowen — who  ranks  with 
William  Elder  among  the  ablest  writers  upon  public  econo- 
mics in  either  America  or  Europe — has  added  the  weight 
of  his  powerful  name  and  scholarly  pen  to  the  forces  which 
have  urged  the  inconsistency  of  the  theory  that  "a  national 
debt  is  a  national  blessing." 


164         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

CHAPTER  V. 

PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE    UNITED  STATES. 

THIS  chapter,  like  the  next  preceding  one,  will  be 
divided  into  two  divisions.  Division  First  will  treat  of 
the  financial  measures  of  Government  whereby  our  present 
public  debt  was  incurred,  and  Division  Second  will  be  de- 
voted to  an  examination  of  such  measures  whereby  this 
•indebtedness  has  been,  and  is  proposed  to  be,  funded. 

DIVISION   FIRST. 

The  Public  Debt  prior  to  the  Late  War — The  first  Financial  Measures 
of  Government  at  its  Outbreak — They  show  an  utter  Inappreciation 
of  the  Character  of  the  Conflict — The  General  Policy  in  this  respect 
fully  stated — The  various  Evidences  of  Indebtedness,  and  the  acts 
which  authorized  them,  examined — The  evils  of  the  Financial  War 
Policy  were  Short  Loans — Loans  in  the  form  of  Money — The  vari- 
ous Funding  Acts  stated  and  explained — The  Operations  of  the 
"Syndicate"  examined — Wholly  Illegal — Its  Results — A  Failure — 
Why  the  Debt  should  be  Paid — How  the  United  States  differ  from 
Great  Britain  in  this  respect. 

ON  the  first  day  of  July,  1861,  nearly  three  months  sub- 
sequent to  the  inauguration  of  our  late  civil  war,  the  public 
debt  of  the  United  States  was  a  little  in  excess  of 
^90,000,000 — about  one-thirtieth  of  its  amount  July  i, 
1866,  and  twenty-seven  times  less  than  at  the  close  of 
the  year  1871.  The  nucleus  of  this  indebtedness  arose 
from  the  assumption  by  the  General  Government,  in  1 790, 
of  the  pecuniary  liabilities  incurred  by  both  the  Confeder- 
ate and  State  Governments  during  the  war  of  the  Revo- 
lution. These  amounted  to  $54,000,000  and  $25,000,000 
respectively.  The  second  struggle  with  Great  Britain,  in 
1812,  added  $35,000,000  to  the  indebtedness  already  in 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.       165 

existence,  and  the  Mexican  war  in  1845,  including  the 
sum  paid  for  the  cession  of  Texas,  California  and  New 
Mexico,  and  the  indemnity  allowed  to  American  citizens 
who  had  claims  against  the  Mexican  Government,  placed 
the  country  under  additional  war-bonds  to  the  extent  of 
$170,000,000.  By  the  Compromise  of  1850,  moreover,  an 
indemnity  was  granted  to  Texas  for  all  claims  against  the 
Government  arising  out  of  the  annexation  of  that  State 
as  the  cause  of  the  Mexican  struggle,  in  the  sum  of 
$10,000,000;  and  a  further  pecuniary  liability  of  about 
$1,000,000  was  incurred  by  the  suppression  of  Indian 
hostilities  in  Oregon  in  1856.  In  pursuance  of  a  policy, 
however,  adopted  by  Congress  at  the  close  of  Madison's 
second  administration,  the  aggregate  indebtedness  of  the 
Federal  Government  at  the  commencement  of  the  last  decade 
had  been  reduced  to  the  amount  stated  in  the  outset. 

The  absolute  inappreciation  by  Government  of  the  prob- 
able extent  of  the  struggle  precipitated  by  the  fire  upon 
Sumter  was  no  less  evidenced  in  its  first  call  for  troops  to 
resist  the  onslaught  than  in  the  character  of  its  financial 
policy  immediately  subsequent  to  the  opening  of  hostilities. 
The  principle  upon  which  the  authorities  at  Washington 
seem  to  have  acted  in  this  connection  was  that,  as  the  con- 
flict already  inaugurated  would  be  confined  within  narrow 
limits,  both  as  to  time  and  territorial  area,  neither  large 
pecuniary  resources  nor  long-deferred  loans  would  be  re- 
quired for  its  prosecution.  The  major  premise  was  an  error 
of  conception  hardly  excusable  in  face  of  the  fact,  known 
to  every  observer  of  our  political  affairs,  that  the  South  had 
been  constantly  organizing  its  forces,  both  moral  and  ma- 
terial, since  the  Compromise  of  1850,  for  the  war  of  seces- 
sion of  1 86 1.  The  deduction  made  from  the  main  prop- 
osition was,  of  course,  erroneous  in  point  of  fact,  but  in 
direct  pursuance  of  what  may  now  be  considered  the  estab- 
lished American  principle,  that  the  United  States  propose 


1 66         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  be  a  debtor  no  longer  than  compelled  by  the  force  of 
existing  circumstances. 

It  is  both  unnecessary  and  impracticable  to  give  a  detailed 
account  of  the  separate  acts  of  legislation  by  which  our 
present  indebtedness  was  authorized,  or  a  complete  and 
separate  statement  of  the  various  evidences  of  the  same 
which  were  issued  and  negotiated  by  our  Department  of 
Finance.  The  latter  will  sufficiently  appear,  for  all  practi- 
cal purposes,  at  the  conclusion  of  this  chapter,  and  the 
former  will  soon  receive  as  extended  comment  as  the  re- 
stricted limits  of  this  treatise  will  permit,  giving  a  brief 
and  separate  history  of  the  same  for  each  year  during  the 
war,  and  deferring  a  discussion  of  the  feasibility  of  said 
measures  until  such  narrative  shall  be  concluded.  There 
will  be  no  intentional  omission  of  any  important  particular. 

The  governmental  belief  in  a  short  war  resulted  in  the 
induction  of  financial  measures  already  foreshadowed, 
which  consisted  in  the  issue  of  Federal  obligations  of  small 
amounts,  with  the  period  of  maturity  not  long  deferred. 
Another  feature  of  the  financial  policy  of  Government  dur- 
ing the  earlier  part  of  the  war  was  to  issue  its  evidences  of 
indebtedness  in  the  form  of  Money  or  currency — that  is, 
legal-tender  or  Treasury  notes — with  a  provision  for  their 
conversion  into  interest-bearing  bonds.  The  principle  upor* 
which  this  action  was  based  contemplated  a  supply  of  an 
alleged  need  of  an  increased  volume  of  circulating  medium. 
In  some  respects  this  measure  was  a  wise,  and  in  others  a 
very  impolitic,  expedient,  as  already  shown  in  a  prior 
chapter  of  this  treatise. 

The  policy  indicated  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  first 
found  expression  in  the  acts  of  July  17  and  August  5,  1861. 
These  acts  authorized  an  issue  of  demand  and  Treasury 
notes  and  interest-bearing  bonds.  The  demand  notes  run 
without  interest,  and  amounted  to  $60,000,000.  The 
Treasury  notes  bore  annual  interest  at  the  rate  of  seven  and 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        1 67 

three-tenths  per  cent.,  had  three  years  to  run  and  reached 
the  sum  of  $140,000,000.  The  bonds  had  twenty  years  to 
run,  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  and 
were  issued  to  the  extent  of  $189,000,000.  The  Treasury 
notes  above  named  were  convertible  into  these  bonds,  and 
were  entirely  absorbed  by  these  securities,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  $23,000,000  still  outstanding  (at  the  close  of  the 
year  1871).  It  is  thus  seen  that  for  the  opening  year  of  a 
war  which  cost  the  United  States,  upon  an  average,  over 
$700,000,000  per  annum,  and  a  year  which,  by  reason  of 
the  necessity  of  a  creation  of  an  army  and  navy  in  toto, 
demanded  an  enormous  financial  resource,  provision  was 
made  for  the  support  of  Government  in  prosecution  of  the 
struggle  only  to  the  extent  of  about  $380,000,000. 

The  acts  of  February  25,  March  i,  March  17,  July  n 
and  17,  1862,  give  a  further  expression  of  the  financial 
policy  of  Government  in  reference  to  the  public  debt,  and 
show  a  more  accurate  appreciation  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
task  it  was  called  upon  to  perform,  but  not  of  the  proper 
financial  measures  requisite  therefor.  The  first  of  these 
acts  authorized  an  issue  of  interest-bearing  bonds,  legal- 
tender  notes  and  temporary  loan  deposits  ;  the  second,  an 
issue  of  certificates  of  indebtedness  ;  the  third,  an  additional 
issue  of  temporary  loan  deposits  above  named ;  the  fourth, 
an  additional  issue  of  this  same  temporary  loan  and  legal- 
tenders  ;  and  the  fifth,  an  issue  of  postal — afterward  changed 
to  fractional-— currency.  The  bonds  bore  interest  at  the 
rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  had  twenty  years  to  run, 
with  an  option  of  Government  to  redeem  at  any  time  after 
the  expiration  of  five  years  from  their  date,  and  were  issued 
to  the  extent  of  $515,000,000.  The  legal-tender  notes 
were  payable  on  demand,  without  interest,  convertible  into 
bonds  of  the  above  character — which  last  provision  has  been 
since  repealed — and  with  those  issued  by  the  act  of  March 
3,  1863  (anticipating  our  narrative  to  this  extent),  amounted 


l68         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  $357,500,000.  The  temporary  loan  deposits  bore  interest 
at  the  rate  of  four,  five  and  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  were  pay- 
able at  any  time  after  ten  days'  notice,  and  reached  the  sum 
of  $150,000,000.  The  certificates  of  indebtedness  had  one 
year  to  run,  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum, 
and  were  issued  to  the  amount  of  about  $562,000,000.  The 
postal — afterward  changed  to  fractional — currency  by  the 
act  of  March  3,  1863,  was  payable  on  presentation,  redeem- 
able in  United  States  notes,  and  amounted  to  $50,000,000. 

The  financial  policy  of  1863  is  indicated  by  the  act  of 
March  3d  of  that  year,  which  authorized  an  issue  of  interest- 
bearing  bonds,  Treasury  notes,  coin  certificates  and  com- 
pound-interest notes.  The  bonds  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of 
six  per  cent,  per  annum,  were  redeemable  in  not  less  than 
ten  nor  more  than  forty  years  from  date,  principal  and  in- 
terest payable  in  coin,  and  were  issued  to  the  extent  of 
$75,000,000.  Although  the  interest  on  all  bonds  of  preced- 
ing issues  was  made  payable  in  coin,  the  issue  of  this  act 
was  the  first  whereby  the  principal,  by  direct  words  of  the 
statute — by  the  letter  of  the  law — was  declared  redeemable 
in  specie.  The  Treasury  notes  had  one  and  two  years  to 
run,  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of  five  per  cent,  per  annum, 
and  were  issued  in  various  sums,  and  are  now  outstanding 
to  the  amount  of  about  $200,000.  The  coin  certificates 
were  issued  for  deposits  of  coin  or  bullion  with  the  Treasury, 
were  payable  on  demand,  without  interest,  and  reached  the 
sum  of  $443,000,000.  The  compound-interest  notes  had 
three  years  to  run,  bore  compound  interest  at  the  rate  of  six 
per  cent,  per  annum,  were  a  legal  tender,  and  were  issued 
to  the  amount  of  about  $217,000,000. 

In  1864  our  public  debt  still  continued  to  be  increased 
by  the  acts  of  March  3,  June  30  and  July  i  of  that  year, 
which  authorized  the  issue  of  interest-bearing  bonds  and 
Treasury  notes.  The  bonds  were  redeemable,  part  in  not 
less  than  five  nor  more  than  twenty,  and  part  in  not  less 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        169 

than  ten  nor  more  than  forty  years.  The  former  bore  in- 
terest at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  were  is- 
sued to  the  extent  of  about  $130,000,000;  while  the  latter, 
bearing  the  same  rate  of  interest,  reached  the  sum  of 
$196,000,000.  Both  of  these  were  payable,  principal  and 
interest,  in  coin.  The  Treasury  notes  had  three  years  to 
run,  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of  seven  and  three-tenths  per 
cent.,  and  reached  the  amount  of  nearly  $830,000,000. 

The  accumulation  of  our  present  public  debt  ceased  with 
the  issues  of  the  various  evidences  of  indebtedness  under 
the  respective  acts  above  described.  The  subsequent  finan- 
cial measures  of  Government  are  funding  ones,  and  will 
find  appropriate  consideration  in  the  second  division  of 
this  chapter.  The  feasibility  of  the  measures  herein  be- 
fore narrated  will  now  receive  attention. 

The  policy  of  Government,  induced  by  a  belief  in  a  short 
war,  which  led  to  the  negotiation  of  short  loans,  and  these, 
to  a  great  extent,  in  the  form  of  Money  or  currency — that 
is,  either  legal-tender  or  Treasury  notes — resulted  in  two 
evils — one  of  a  comparatively  superficial,  the  other  of  a 
very  material,  character.  The  first  was  not  only  a  dis- 
turber of  public  convenience,  but,  to  a  certain  degree,  a 
traducer  of  public  credit.  The  second  was  the  uncompro- 
mising foe  of  nearly  every  individual  interest  and  the  ma- 
terial prosperity  of  nearly  every  class  or  portion  of  com- 
munity. By  pursuance  of  the  plan  which  deferred  the  ma- 
turity of  Government  obligations  for  only  a  short  period, 
the  Administration  was  constantly  annoyed  and  embarrassed 
by  the  return  of  its  bills  of  credit,  demanding  compliance 
with  the  letter  of  the  bond,  and  this  at  times  when  even  the 
existence  of  the  Government  was  in  absolute  jeopardy. 
Thus,  the  certificates  of  indebtedness  of  March  i,  1862, 
had  only  one  year  to  run.  The  consequence  was,  that  in 
the  autumn  of  1863 — a  period  which  was,  in  many  respects, 
so  to  speak,  the  very  midnight  of  the  nation's  struggle  for 

15  II 


THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

life — nearly  $400,000,000  of  these  certificates  knocked  at 
the  door  of  the  national  Treasury  and  sought  redemption 
from  its  already  depleted  coffers.  So  again  in  the  autumn 
of  1864 — a  period  when  the  ill-fated  army  of  the  Potomac 
was  struggling  through  the  marshes  and  swamps  of  Virginia, 
en  route  for  Richmond,  with  one  hundred  thousand  of  its 
brave  boys  locked  in  the  embrace  of  death — $140,000,000 
of  three-year  Treasury  notes,  issued  under  the  act  of  July 
17,  1861,  imperatively  claimed  conversion  into  the  "lawful 
money  "  for  which  the  nation's  faith  was  unqualifiedly  and 
absolutely  pledged.  Further  instances  might  be  adduced, 
but  such  a  course  is  quite  unnecessary.  These  rapidly-ma- 
turing loans  forced  the  authorities  at  Washington  to  fre- 
quent and  various  expedients,  not  to  say  makeshifts — and 
yet  that  is  the  only  proper  term  for  much  of  the  financial 
legislation  of  the  war — in  their  attempt  to  preserve  the  na- 
tional credit  and  abide  by  the  Government's  contracts  with 
its  creditors.  Such  forced  and  immature  legislation,  in- 
deed, could  not  be  expected  to  be  either  wise  or  judicious. 
The  National  banking  system  is  about  the  only  wholesome 
measure  of  financial  legislation  during  the  war,  and  this,  as 
already  noticed,  has  grave  defects.  A  very  striking  illus- 
tration of  such  unadvised  action  is  found  in  connection 
with  our  legal-tender  notes  and  fractional  currency.  The 
act  of  July  n,  1862,  authorized  an  issue  of  $150,000,000 
of  legal-tenders  in  addition  to  a  like  amount  already  in  cir- 
culation, prohibiting  a  denomination  of  the  same  of  less 
than  one  dollar.  The  issue,  of  course,  so  inflated  the  cur- 
rency— prospectively,  it  is  true — that  specie  immediately 
sought  the  fellowship  of  Money-hoarders,  and  the  country 
was  left,  comparatively  speaking,  without  a  dollar  of 
"  small  change  "  for  the  petty  uses  of  daily  life.  The  con- 
sequence was,  that  in  six  days  after  its  prohibition  of  paper 
currency  in  sums  less  than  one  dollar,  Congress  authorized 
an  issue  of  $50,000,000  of  the  same  to  take  the  place  of 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.       I? I 

the  specie  which  its  action  of  a  week  before  had  driven 
from  circulation. 

The  second  evil  of  the  war-policy  of  Government  in  this 
connection  was  the  negotiation  of  many  of  its  largest  loans 
in  the  form  of  Money,  and  thereby  greatly  augmenting  the 
volume  of  our  circulating  medium.  The  evil  effects  of  such 
a  course  have  been  already  discussed  in  the  consideration 
of  abstract  principles  in  preceding  chapters.  A  brief  ex- 
amination of  those  which  resulted  from  the  policy  above 
named  will  now  be  made.  A  mere  allusion  to  this  topic  is 
all  that  is  necessary,  as  it  has  been  fully  examined  in  the 
second  chapter  of  this  treatise.  Almost  the  sole  idea  which 
Congress  and  the  Administration  seem  to  have  acted  upon 
was,  that  Money,  currency,  circulating  medium  of  some 
sort,  constituted  the  chief  requisite  for  prosecuting  the  war. 
In  pursuance  of  this  idea,  as  already  seen  in  the  chapter 
last  above  named,  the  circulating  medium  of  the  loyal  sec- 
tion of  the  country  was  swelled  from  less  than  $300,000,000 
to  at  one  time  $900,000,000.  This  action  resulted  in  leav- 
ing paper  Money  the  sole  measure  of  value  and  medium  of 
exchange,  and,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  scarcity  and 
excess,  explained  in  the  chapter  just  mentioned,  the  prices 
of  all  commodities  advanced  in  a  direct  ratio  with  the  in- 
crease in  the  volume  of  paper  Money.  The  Government 
did  not  need  this  vast  amount  of  paper  Money,  of  circulating 
medium,  although  at  first  thought  it  may  seem  otherwise.  Its 
proper  course  was  to  have  issued  its  bonds  for  a  long  period, 
put  them  upon  the  market  and  sold  them  to  the  highest 
bidder.  Instead  of  this,  the  act  of  February  25,  1863, 
directed  that  the  bonds  of  Government  must  be  sold  at  par, 
and  excessive  issues  of  paper  Money  were  resorted  to  to 
supply  the  needs  of  Government.  Two  objections  will  be 
here  raised  to  the  above  statement  as  to  sale  of  bonds. 
The  first,  that  there  would  have  been  no  Money  to  have 
purchased  them  with;  tlic-  second,  that  they  would  have 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

sold  at  a  great  sacrifice,  and  so  very  materially  enhanced 
our  present  indebtedness.  The  first  objection  will  not 
stand  for  a  moment.  Our  bonds  found  a  market,  and  a 
very  extended  one,  in  Europe,  beside  those  taken  by  our 
own  population.  If  they  had  been  offered  to  the  high- 
est bidder,  thus  putting  them  in  competition  with  other 
securities,  capital  from  every  foreign  Money-market  would 
have  sought  their  possession  as  soon  as  they  undersold 
other  means  of  investment.  The  statement  is  apropos  in 
this  connection  that  it  is  an  advantage,  instead  of  a  disad- 
vantage, if  our  securities  are  held  by  foreign  capitalists,  for 
the  reason  that  it  leaves  our  home  capital  in  the  exclusive 
service  of  productive  industries.  The  second  objection  is 
only  seemingly  sound.  Our  present  indebtedness  would  not 
have  been  unduly  augmented  by  selling  bonds  forty  per  cent, 
below  par  in  gold  any  more  than  it  was  unnecessarily  ex- 
tended by  selling  them  for  paper  Money,  the  value  of  which 
was  depreciated  forty  per  cent,  or  more.  What  is  the  dif- 
ference between  having  sixty  cents  in  specie  and  one  dollar 
in  paper  Money,  when  the  exchangeable  value  of  each  is  the 
same?  The  Government  wanted  Money  to  buy  supplies 
and  ammunition  and  pay  its  army  and  navy ;  and  so  long 
as  sixty  cents  in  specie  would  have  gone  as  far  in  this  direc- 
tion as  one  dollar  in  currency,  it  would  have  taken  no  more 
bonds,  sold  below  par  in  specie,  to  effect  this  purpose  than 
it  did,  sold  at  par  in  currency,  to  accomplish  the  same  end. 
The  question  is  here  asked,  "What  is  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  schemes  when  they  both  eventuate  in  the 
same  result?"  The  difference  in  the  first  place  is,  that  in 
consequence  of  Government  having  negotiated  its  loans  in 
excessive  issues  of  paper  Money  and  the  sale  of  bonds  in 
currency  at  par,  the  price  of  commodities  was  enhanced 
one  hundred  per  cent,  and  more,  and  the  business  of  the 
country  so  far  removed  from  a  specie  basis  that  seven  years 
have  not  sufficed  to  effect  a  return  to  the  same.  This  is 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        1/3 

not  all.  The  laboring  classes  of  community  suffered  un- 
accountable privation  by  this  policy.  Their  wages  and 
salaries  never  increased  in  more  than  one-half  the  ratio  with 
the  advance  in  the  cost  of  living  expenses,  as  explained  in 
the  second  chapter,  already  referred  to.  None  of  these  re- 
sulting circumstances  would  have  occurred  under  the  oppo- 
site course,  as  above  mentioned,  to  any  great  extent.  In  the 
absence  of  a  material  inflation  of  the  circulating  medium, 
prices  of  commodities  would  have  been  augmented  only 
in  accordance  with  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  specie 
payments  would  not  have  been  far  removed,  though  prob- 
ably suspended,  and  our  laboring  population  would  have 
been  protected  from  untold  and  inappreciable  misery  and 
want. 

These  two  elements  of  the  financial  policy  of  Govern- 
ment, whereby  our  public  debt  was  incurred,  constituted  the 
fundamental  defects  of  the  entire  system.  There  is  much 
to  be  said  in  extenuation  of  the  legislation  above  criticised, 
it  is  true.  The  exigencies  which  induced  it  were  almost 
overwhelming,  not  to  say  distracting,  but  an  impartial  ex- 
amination of  the  matter  could  not  offer  for  it  the  excuse  of 
silence. 

Comment  upon  the  policy  of  payment  of  our  public  debt, 
and  the  schemes  which  have  been  suggested  for  so  doing, 
would  be  logically  appropriate  in  this  connection.  The 
same,  however,  is  deferred,  as  a  fitting  conclusion  not  only 
of  this  chapter,  but  of  the  portion  of  this  treatise  which 
has  been  devoted  to  "  Monetary  and  Financial  Topics." 


DIVISION    SECOND. 

A  consideration  of  the  legislation  by  which  the  public 
debt  has  been  and  is  proposed  to  be  funded  will  now  en- 
gage attention.  The  first  funding  act  after  the  prccipita- 

15* 


1/4          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tion  of  the  late  civil  war  bears  date  February  25,  1862. 
This  act  provided  for  the  issue  and  sale  of  what  are  known 
as  five-twenty  bonds,  and  permitted  the  conversion  of  the 
Treasury  notes  and  certificates  of  indebtedness  of  the  pre- 
vious year  into  the  same.  This  act,  moreover,  made  pro- 
vision for  a  sinking  fund  as  follows,  namely :  all  duties  on 
imports  to  be  collected  in  coin  or  other  lawful  Money,  and 
the  coin  so  collected  to  be  set  apart  as  a  special  fund  for 
the  following  purposes:  "First.  To  the  payment  in  coin 
of  the  interest  on  the  bonds  and  notes  of  the  United  States. 
Second.  To  the  purchase  or  payment  of  one  per  centum 
of  the  entire  debt  of  the  United  States,  to  be  made  within 
each  fiscal  year  after  the  first  day  of  July,  1862,  which  is 
to  be  set  apart  as  a  sinking  fund,  and  the  interest  of  which 
shall  in  like  manner  be  applied  to  the  purchase  or  payment 
of  the  public  debt,  as  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  shall 
from  time  to  time  direct."  This  provision,  although  mod- 
ified in  form  by  the  funding  act  of  July  14,  1870,  is  still 
intact  in  substance  and  of  binding  force  upon  Govern- 
ment. 

The  next  funding  acts  are  those  of  March  3,  1865,  and 
April  12,  1866,  which  are  construed  together.  They  au- 
thorize an  issue  of  five-twenty  bonds  as  before  described, 
bearing  interest  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  for  the  purpose 
of  absorbing,  by  way  of  exchange,  any  and  all  outstanding 
obligations  of  Government  except  the  legal-tender  notes ; 
these,  by  the  original  act  which  authorized  their  emission, 
were  convertible  into  bonds  of  the  above  description,  but 
that  provision,  as  before  stated,  was  subsequently  repealed. 
These  funding  acts  have  all  since  been  merged,  so  to  speak, 
in  those  of  July  14,  1870,  and  January  20,  1871.  This 
last  is  amendatory  of  the  first,  and  the  leading  provisions 
of  the  funding  scheme  evolved  by  these  combined  statutes 
are  as  follows:  $1,500,000,000  of  interest-bearing  bonds, 
principal  and  interest  payable  in  coin,  are  to  be  issued  in 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        1/5 

denominations  of  fifty  dollars  or  some  multiple  thereof  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  redeeming  the  five-twenty  bonds  out- 
standing at  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  act  first  above 
named.  Of  this  sum,  $500,000,000  may  bear  interest  at 
five  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  be  redeemable  at  pleasure  of 
Government  "after  ten  years  from  the  date  of  their  issue." 
The  remaining  $1,000,000,000  authorized  by  these  acts  may 
bear  interest  at  four  and  a  half  and  four  per  cent,  per  an- 
num, and  be  redeemable  at  pleasure  of  Government  "after 
fifteen  and  thirty  years  from  their  issue,"  respectively.  Con- 
struing the  above-named  acts  together,  the  limit  of  the  four 
and  a  half  per  cent,  bonds  is  $300,000,000,  and  that  of 
the  four  per  cents.,  consequently,  $700,000,000.  These 
bonds  must  be  sold  at  par  in  coin,  are  exempt  from  every 
form  of  taxation,  and  a  sum  not  exceeding  one-half  of  one 
per  cent,  of  the  amount  issued  is  appropriated  to  pay  the 
expense  of  preparing,  issuing,  advertising  and  disposing  of 
the  same.  The  public  debt  is  not  to  be  increased  by  any 
action  under  these  acts,  and  whenever  any  of  the  five- 
twenty  bonds  outstanding  at  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the 
act  first  above  named  are  to  be  redeemed,  three  months'  no- 
tice of  the  same  must  be  given,  designating  the  bonds  by 
numbers,  and  interest  on  such  bonds  shall  not  cease  until 
the  expiration  of  the  three  months  as  aforesaid. 

In  pursuance  of  this  funding  scheme,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  on  the  28th  of  February,  1871,  gave  notice 
that  on  the  6th  of  March  following  books  would  be  opened 
for  subscription  to  the  five  per  cent,  bonds  to  the  extent  of 
$200,000,000.  On  the  first  of  August  next  succeeding 
such  subscriptions  amounted  to  $65,075,550.  This  sum 
had  mostly  been  subscribed  by  the  National  banks,  and 
the  subscriptions  at  the  date  above  named,  moreover,  had 
entirely  ceased.  On  the  first  of  September,  1871,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  virtue  of  authority  conferred 
by  the  acts  already  cited,  gave  notice  that  certain  five- 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

twenty  bonds  of  the  issue  of  1862,  designating  the  same  by 
numbers,  bearing  interest  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  to  the 
amount  of  $100,000,000,  would  be  paid  on  December  ist 
of  the  same  year,  and  that  interest  on  the  same  would 
cease  on  that  day. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  on  August  ist  of  the  same 
year  (1871)  the  demand  for  the  new  five  per  cent,  bonds 
had  ceased.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  his  com- 
mendable zeal  to  make  the  new  funding  loan  a  success,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  said  August  entered  into  an  agreement, 
through  the  agency  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co.,  with  certain 
English  and  American  bankers,  who  were  christened  by 
some  one  "The  Syndicate"  (but  by  whom  history  has 
thus  far  failed  to  determine,  Secretary  Boutwell  having 
denied  that  the  title  was  conferred  by  him),  whereby  these 
bankers  should  take  the  portion  of  the  $200,000,000  of 
the  five  per  cent,  bonds  still  unsold — namely,  about 
$130,000,000 — subject,  however,  to  certain  conditions. 
The  terms  of  this  agreement,  using  Secretary's  Boutwell's 
own  words,  were  as  follows — namely:  "The  parties  repre- 
sented by  Messrs.  Jay  Cooke  &  Co.  had  the  right  to  sub- 
scribe for  the  remainder  of  the  two  hundred  millions  of 
said  bonds  by  giving  notice  thereof  at  any  time  previous 
to  the  first  of  April  next,  and  by  subscribing  for  ten  mil- 
lions at  once,  and  for  an  average  of  at  least  five  millions 
of  bonds  per  month  during  the  intervening  time,  subject  to 
the  right  of  the  National  banks  to  subscribe  for  fifty  millions 
of  dollars  within  sixty  days  from  the  25th  day  of  August." 
"It  was  also  agreed  that  the  subscriptions  should  be  made 
through  National  banks,  and  certificates  of  deposit  therefor 
issued  by  said  banks  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  bonds 
to  be  lodged  with  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  for 
the  amount  of  the  deposit." 

A  circular  was  also  issued  August  10,  1871,  from  the 
Treasury  Department,  quoting  again  from  Secretary  Bout- 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

well,  whereof  the  tenor  was  as  follows  :  "  It  was  announced 
that  National  banks  making  or  obtaining  subscriptions  pay- 
able in  coin  would  be  designated  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  as  depositaries  of  public  Money,  on  the  usual 
condition  of  placing  in  the  hands  of  the  Treasurer  of  the 
United  States  bonds  of  the  United  States  for  the  security 
of  such  deposits ;  and  that  at  the  commencement  of  each 
month  notice  would  be  given  of  the  redemption  of  an 
amount  of  bonds  equal  to  the  amount  of  subscriptions  in 
coin  for  the  preceding  month,  interest  to  cease  in  ninety 
days  from  the  date  of  such  notice. 

"It  was  also  stated  in  the  circular  that  as  the  bonds 
called  should  mature  the  deposits  would  be  drawn  from  the 
several  banks  proportionately. 

"It  was  further  agreed  that  the  subscribers  to  the  loan 
should  receive  as  commissions  whatever  might  remain  of 
the  half  of  one  per  cent,  allowed  by  law  upon  the  two  hun- 
dred millions,  after  paying  the  cost  of  paper  for  the  bonds, 
for  engraving,  printing,  advertising,  delivery,  and  all  other 
expenses  of  the  same." 

Upon  this  basis  the  remaining  $130, 000,000  of  the  five 
per  cent,  bonds  were  subscribed  for  by  the  Syndicate  before 
the  close  of  the  same  month  (August,  1871)  in  which  the 
agreement  was  made,  with  an  accruing  advantage  allowed 
the  Syndicate,  however,  whereby  it  was  paid  an  extra  com- 
mission of  a  little  over  $1,625,000,  and  the  letter  certainly, 
if  not  the  spirit,  of  the  funding  act  directly  violated.  The 
$130,000,000  of  bonds  subscribed  for  by  the  Syndicate 
were  not  to  be  delivered  until  the  expiration  of  three 
months  from  the  date  of  subscription,  but  they  were  con- 
sidered as  sold  and  drawing  interest  during  this  period  ;  so 
that  the  Syndicate  realized  by  the  transaction  a  sum  equal 
to  the  interest  of  $130,000,000  for  three  months,  which 
amounts  to  a  little  more  than  $1,625,000,  as  already  stated. 
The  practical  working  of  the  arrangement  was  simply  this : 

II  2 


1/8          THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

"  The  Syndicate  certified  to  the  Treasury  that  they  had  de- 
posited with  themselves  coin  for  the  purchase  of  the  new 
bonds ;  they  forward  to  the  Treasury  a  like  amount  of  old 
five-twenties  as  security  for  the  deposit;  the  new  bonds  are 
at  once  placed  to  their  credit ;  at  the  end  of  ninety  days 
the  five-twenties  are  canceled,  they  receive  the  three 
months'  interest  that  has  accrued  upon  them,  and  at  the 
same  time  get  their  new  bonds,  upon  which  three  months' 
interest  has  also  accrued." 

The  letter  of  the  funding  statute  was  violated  by  this 
proceeding  in  that  this  act  positively  prohibits  any  action 
thereunder  whereby  the  public  debt  shall  be  increased,  and 
by  the  foregoing  arrangement,  in  pursuance  of  which 
$130,000,000  of  bonds  were  placed  to  the  credit  of  the 
Syndicate  three  months  before  delivery  of  the  same,  for  the 
purpose  of  drawing  interest,  the  public  debt  was  increased 
in  the  sum  and  for  the  period  named.  The  following  is 
Secretary  BoutwelPs  excuse  for  the  proceeding:  "  The  act 
authorizing  the  refunding  of  the  national  debt  directed  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  give  three  months'  notice  of 
the  payment  of  any  bonds  which  in  such  notice  might  be 
specified  and  called  for  payment.  In  the  same  act  it  was 
provided  that  the  Money  received  for  the  new  bonds  should 
be  used  only  in  payment  of  bonds  outstanding,  known  as 
five-twenty  bonds.  The  statute  proceeded  upon  the  idea 
that  the  holders  of  five-twenty  bonds  should  have  three 
months'  interest  upon  their  bonds  after  notice  should  be 
given  by  the  Government. 

"  As  this  notice  could  be  given  safely  only  upon  subscrip- 
tions already  made  or  secured,  the  general  necessary  result, 
even  in  case  the  Money  were  paid  into  and  held  in  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  would  be  a  loss  of  interest 
for  three  months. 

"  On  the  ist  of  August  last  the  demand  for  the  new 
bonds  had  nearly  ceased,  but  by  the  agreement  referred  to 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        1/9 

the  necessary  loss  to  the  Government  incident  to  the  re- 
funding of  the  public  debt  was  made  the  means  of  securing 
subscriptions  to  the  amount  of  about  one  hundred  and  thirty 
millions  of  dollars. 

' '  The  banks,  or  those  represented  by  the  banks,  derived 
an  advantage  in  the  use  of  the  amount  of  their  subscrip- 
tions for  three  months,  but  this  without  other  loss  to  the 
Government  than  what  was  incident  to  the  negotiation  of 
the  loan  under  the  law." 

That  is,  since  by  the  funding  act  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  is  obliged  to  give  three  months'  notice  to  holders 
of  the  old  six  per  cent,  five-twenty  bonds  of  his  intention 
to  buy  in  the  same  before  the  interest  thereon  will  cease,  he 
could  not  have  used  the  $130,000,000  due  from  the  Syndi- 
cate if  it  had  been  paid  at  the  time  of  its  subscription  for 
the  new  bonds  until  the  expiration  of  the  three  months 
aforesaid,  as  the  funding  act  forbids  the  appropriation  of 
moneys  derived  from  the  sale  of  the  new  bonds  to  any 
purpose  save  the  redemption  of  the  old  five-twenties ; 
therefore  the  Syndicate  may  properly  have  the  use  of  the 
$130,000,000  for  the  three  months  in  which  their  possession 
would  have  been  of  no  avail  to  the  Government.  The 
Secretary,  moreover,  defends  himself  with  the  plea  that  the 
interest  on  $130,000,000  of  the  public  debt  was  reduced 
from  six  to  five  per  cent,  by  the  operation. 

Materially  speaking,  the  transaction  with  the  Syndicate 
resulted  in  no  loss  to  Government  whatever,  but  it  was  a 
transaction  nevertheless,  although  conceived  and  executed 
with  the  most  honorable  and  upright  intention  on  the  part 
of  the  Secretary,  in  direct  violation  of  a  law  of  the  United 
States,  and  tends  to  the  establishment  of  a  precedent  which 
in  less  honorable  hands  might  result  not  merely  in  a  disre- 
gard of  the  authority  of  Congress,  but  in  a  total  destruction 
of  even  Government  itself.  The  creation  of  law  is  the 
province  of  legislation ;  its  execution  devolves  upon  the 


ISO         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

executive  :  but  construction  thereof  is  the  office  of  legal  tri- 
bunals. It  is  here  that  Secretary  Boutwell  has  erred.  He 
has  arrogated  to  himself  the  exercise  of  a  judicial  preroga- 
tive when  he  is  possessed  of  mere  executive  power.  If  the 
door  is  opened  for  such  executive  usurpation,  where  shall 
we  stop  ?  Who  shall  draw  the  line  beyond  which  executive 
power  shall  not  rebel  ?  What  are  the  exigencies  which  shall 
excuse  such  transgression  ?  By  what  rule  or  principle  are 
such  exigencies  to  be  determined  ?  The  situation  is  preg- 
nant with  evils  of  the  gravest  import.  Speaking  in  the 
abstract,  this  simple  defiance  of  law  was  the  parent  of  the 
recent  rebellion,  which  has  consigned  a  million  of  men  to 
premature  death,  and  entailed  upon  Government  the  debt 
of  $3,000,000,000  which  Secretary  Boutwell  has  been  so 
persistently  endeavoring  to  cancel.  The  country  has  had 
full  enough  of  what  may  well  be  termed  lay  construction — 
of  self-constituted  tribunals;  and  it  behooves  executive 
authority  to  keep  within  the  limits  prescribed  for  it  by  our 
organic  law,  as  it  does  the  department  of  legislation  to  re- 
frain from  supplanting  civil  government  with  military  force. 
This  thought  will  be  pursued  at  length  in  the  second  part 
of  this  treatise.  Further  comment  thereon  in  this  connec- 
tion would  be  illogical  and  improper. 

The  result  of  the  funding  scheme  of  1870  is  thus  seen  to 
be  the  conversion  of  $200,000,000  of  old  six  per  cent,  five- 
twenty  bonds  into  the  five  per  cent,  securities  authorized 
thereunder,  and  this  upon  payment  of  a  sum  of  $1,625,000 
in  excess  of  the  provision  allowed  by  Congress  therefor. 
This  is  not  all.  The  remainder  of  the  new  loan  will  not, 
in  all  probability,  be  placed  except  at  a  similar  additional 
and  proportionate  expense.  The  only  real  inducement  held 
out  by  the  present  funding  act  to  holders  of  the  old  six  per 
cent,  five-twenties  to  exchange  the  same  for  the  new  five 
per  cents,  is,  that  the  principal  of  the  latter  is,  by  the  letter 
of  the  statute,  payable  in  coin,  while  with  the  former  such 


PUBLIC  DEB  T  OF  THE  UNITED  STA  TES.        1 8 1 

is  not  the  case.  Faith  in  the  sacredness  of  Government's 
purpose  to  pay  the  entire  debt  in  coin,  however,  as  pledged 
by  the  act  of  March  18,  1869,  militates  against  the  proba- 
bility of  capitalists  changing  their  six  for  five  per  cent, 
securities  upon  their  own  volition.  It  is  a  violation  of 
common  sense  and  reason  to  suppose  otherwise.  The  com- 
mission allowed  by  Congress,  moreover,  for  the  absolute 
sale  of  the  new  five  per  cents,  is  too  meagre  to  induce  capi- 
talists to  negotiate  the  loan,  and  thereby  put  the  Treasury 
in  funds  for  the  purchase  of  the  old  five-twenties  in  accord- 
ance with  the  optional  right  it  has  so  to  do.  The  funding 
acts  of  1870,  therefore,  in  the  light  of  experience,  cannot 
be  regarded  as  a  success,  and  they  will  require  material 
modification  before  the  outstanding  debt  can  be  absorbed 
by  issues  thereunder,  unless  some  such  unwarranted  expedi- 
ent as  the  Syndicate  of  August,  1871.  is  again  resorted  to. 

This  discussion  will  be  dismissed  with  a  brief  comment 
upon  the  feasibility  and  necessity  of  an  immediate  payment 
of  the  public  debt,  principal  and  interest,  in  coin.  This 
comment,  indeed,  will  be  of  the  closest  possible  character, 
as  the  subject,  in  the  abstract,  was  fully  considered  in  the 
next  preceding  chapter. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  old  six  per  cent,  five- 
twenty  bonds  issued  under  the  act  of  February  25,  1862, 
are  not,  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  statute,  payable  in  specie, 
although  it  has  been  generally  conceded  that  such  was  the 
intention  of  the  legislators.  The  statutes  subsequent  to  the 
one  above  named,  whereby  the  amount  of  the  public  debt 
was  increased  by  issues  of  bonds  thereunder,  although  inex- 
cusably and  culpably  loose  in  their  phraseology,  have  been, 
in  a  quasi  manner,  construed  to  pledge  the  faith  of  Gov- 
ernment for  the  payment  of  such  bonds,  principal  and  in- 
terest, in  coin.  The  absence  of  an  express  provision  to 
that  effect,  however,  in  the  act  of  February  25,  1862, 
whereunder  over  $500,000,000  of  five-twenties  were  issued, 

16 


1 82  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

has  given  rise  to  extended  discussion  as  to  the  propriety  of 
paying  such  five-twenties  in  legal-tender  notes  instead  of 
specie.  A  full  history  of  this  discussion  will  not  be  essayed, 
as  its  details  are  familiar  to  every  intelligent  citizen.  It 
has  ceased  to  engage  public  attention,  and  the  scheme  is 
buried  in  the  oblivion  to  which  its  treacherous  and  perfidi- 
ous character  justly  consigned  it.  It  was  a  mere  exponent 
of  political  capital,  a  part  of  the  stock-in-trade  of  politicians 
who  had  personal  ends  to  serve,  and  as  such  was  originated 
by  George  H.  Pendleton,  and  subsequently  indorsed,  in  its 
cardinal  features,  by  B.  F.  Butler,  Oliver  P.  Morton  and 
John  Sherman.  This  "greenback  swindle,"  as  it  has  been 
justly  termed,  depressed  the  value  of  our  securities  and 
injured  the  public  credit  to  such  an  extent  that  Congress, 
March  18,  1869,  passed  an  act  for  the  sole  and  express  pur- 
pose of  barring  further  agitation  of  the  subject,  whereby 
the  faith  of  the  United  States  is  pledged  for  the  payment 
of  the  entire  public  debt  in  coin,  except  in  cases  of  obliga- 
tions issued  under  acts  which  distinctly  provide  for  pay- 
ment of  the  same  in  other  Money  besides  specie.  The 
funding  act  of  1870,  moreover,  directs  that  the  new  loan 
into  which  the  old  five-twenty  bonds  are  convertible  shall 
be  paid,  principal  and  interest,  in  coin. 

That  a  national  debt  is  not  a  national  blessing,  so  far  as 
the  interests  of  this  country,  at  least,  are  concerned,  was 
strenuously  maintained  in  the  last  chapter.  That  our  pres- 
ent public  debt,  contracted  in  the  main  during  our  late 
civil  war,  could  not,  for  certain  reasons,  have  been  canceled 
as  it  was  incurred,  was  also  demonstrated  in  that  connec- 
tion. Comment  upon  these  two  points,  therefore,  is  here 
unnecessary.  The  principal  reasons  for  the  immediate  ex- 
tinguishment of  the  public  debt  are  found  in  the  possibility 
of  future  war  and  the  necessary  maintenance  of  public 
credit.  This  end  should  be  persistently  sought  with  all  the 
rapidity  consistent  with  a  non-imposition  of  a  too  heavy 


PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        183 

burden  of  taxation  upon  the  people.  What  this  measure 
of  taxation  should  be  will  be  discussed  in  the  chapter  de- 
voted to  that  subject  in  Part  III.  of  this  treatise.  Secretary 
Boutvvell,  in  his  report  for  1871 — the  most  admirably-ar- 
ranged report,  by  the  way,  which  ever  emanated  from  our 
Department  of  Finance — gives  expression  to  the  sentiment 
of  the  great  majority  of  the  people  upon  this  subject  in  the 
following  words:  "In  my  annual  report  to  Congress  for 
1870  I  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  settled  policy  of  the 
country  should  contemplate  a  revenue  sufficient  to  meet 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  Government,  pay  the  interest 
on  the  public  debt,  and  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  millions 
of  dollars  of  the  principal  annually.  To  that  opinion  I 
adhere,  with  even  a  stronger  conviction  that  the  payment 
annually  upon  the  principal  of  the  public  debt  should  not 
be  less  than  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

"  Large  as  the  revenues  of  the  country  have  been  during 
the  last  three  years,  our  system  of  taxation  has  not  been 
oppressive  to  individuals,  nor  has  it  in  any  sensible  degree 
embarrassed  the  business  of  the  country ;  and  while  relief 
from  taxation  is  desirable,  it  is  yet  more  desirable  to  main- 
tain the  public  credit  in  its  present  elevated  position,  not 
only  as  an  example  to  other  nations,  but  for  its  historical 
value  in  enabling  the  Government  to  make  loans  for  large 
amounts  upon  favorable  terms  if,  unhappily,  in  the  future 
au  exigency  should  require  such  loans  to  be  made." 

The  Secretary  is  correct.  At  the  close  of  Madison's  sec- 
ond administration  Congress  adopted  a  policy  for  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  public  debt  which  had  been  incurred  in  the  wars 
of  the  Revolution  and  1812,  which  contemplated  its  pay- 
ment in  installments  of  $10,000,000  annually.  The  country 
at  that  period,  in  view  of  its  comparative  extent  of  popula- 
tion and  material  resource,  was  not  so  well  able  to  bear  the 
burden  imposed  upon  it  as  it  now  is  that  suggested  by  the 
Secretary  in  his  report  above  mentioned. 


1 84         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

The  public  debt  during  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1871,  was  reduced  in  the  sum  of  $94,327,764.84,  and  from 
the  incoming  of  Grant's  administration  to  January  i,  1872, 
$281,624,848.87.  The  gross  amount  of  the  same  at  the 
time  last  above  named,  moreover,  less  the  cash  in  the 
Treasury,  was  $2,243,838,411.14. 

The  discussion  of  "Monetary  and  Financial  Topics," 
and  thereby  Part  I.  of  this  treatise,  is  here  concluded. 


PART   II. 


EXISTING  AND  PROPOSED    CHANGES  IN 
OUR  ORGANIC  AND  MUNICIPAL  LAW. 


INDUCTIVE. 

IN  passing  from  the  consideration  of  the  subjects  which 
have  thus  far  engaged  attention  to  those  into  which 
the  above-written  title  naturally  resolves  itself,  the  door 
is  opened  to  an  entirely  different  and  far  more  fascinat- 
ing field  of  inquiry.  The  entire  theme  of  political  science, 
indeed,  offers  very  little  inducement  to  the  mere  pleasure- 
seeking  mind,  but  that  portion  of  it  enclosed  within  the 
boundaries  of  Money  and  Finance  is  particularly  uninviting 
for  purposes  of  mental  recreation.  Its  pathways  are  skirted 
with  no  flowers  of  imagination  wherewith  a  playful  intel- 
lect may  satiate  its  love  for  a  life  of  ceaseless  imagery ; 
neither  do  they  lead  through  occasional  fields  of  fancy, 
wherein  a  vacillating  spirit  may  here  and  there  throw  off 
the  harness  of  dull  investigation  and  regale  itself  with 
painting  pictures  of  thought  upon  the  canvas  of  ideality. 
They  proffer  entertainment  to  no  one  but  the  mere  lover  of 
absolute  science,  close  their  gates  upon  all  save  the  tireless 
student  in  quest  of  knowledge  and  truth,  and  verify,  in  the 
mind  which  has  acquainted  itself  with  all  their  surround- 
ings, the  force  of  the  aphorism  of  Epicharmus,  that  "the 
gods  sell  us  everything  for  toil." 

16*  185 


1 86          THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Turning  to  that  portion  of  political  science,  however, 
designated  by  the  boundaries  of  Organic  and  Municipal 
Law,  we  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  one  of  the  grandest 
domains  of  reason  and  of  thought.  The  study  of  matter 
is  here  abandoned  for  the  study  of  man.  Search  is  here 
made  for  the  springs  of  human  action,  the  agencies  where- 
by these  silent  forces  may  be  influenced,  and  the  proper 
channels  wherein  they  shall  be  directed.  In  short,  the 
theme  is  Government;  and  this,  in  the  abstract,  receives 
an  ample  definition  in  the  next  preceding  sentence,  for  all 
government  consists,  first,  in  an  acquaintance  with  human 
motive ;  second,  a  knowledge  of  the  means  whereby  such 
motive  may  be  influenced ;  and  third,  the  perfection  of 
proper  measures  for  the  guidance  thereof.  It  is  a  task, 
indeed,  in  which  man  is  a  coadjutor  of  God,  and  one  that 
shall  absorb  his  attention  both  for  time  and  eternity.  By 
it  he  seeks  to  obey  the  mandate  of  Omnipotence  which 
attaches  to  all  conditions  of  human  existence — "Know  thy- 
self!" And  as  God,  "in  the  beginning,"  established  a 
fundamental  law  of  Nature  to  which  all  His  minor  ordin- 
ances for  the  regulation  of  the  material  world  are  subservient, 
so  in  every  epoch  of  civilization  has  man  essayed  the  struc- 
ture of  human  government  by  framing  one  fundamental, 
organic  law,  whereon,  guided  by  its  principles,  he  has 
reared  the  superstructure  of  a  municipal  code. 

By  the  terms  Organic  and  Municipal  Law,  therefore, 
which  appear  in  the  title  by  which  the  present  part  of  this 
treatise  is  designated,  are  intended,  in  the  first  instance, 
constitutional  law,  and  in  the  second  the  immense  volume 
of  statute  law  enacted  and  promulgated  from  time  to  time 
for  the  more  immediate  government  of  mankind.  The 
first  binds  the  legislature — the  state— the  supreme  power,  in 
its  office  of  legislation,  while  the  second  bears  alone  upon 
individuals.  The  first  is  a  rule  whereby  the  people,  in 


INDUCTIVE.  187 

their  sovereign  capacity,  create  the  second,  and  the  second 
is  a  rule  by  which  the  people,  in  their  several  conditions, 
are  bound  to  govern  their  individual  acts. 

The  topics,  therefore,  which  will  now  demand  considera- 
tion, although  the  offshoots  of  abstract  principles  of  science, 
are  pregnant  with  truths  of  the  most  engrossing  interest 
and  rich  in  their  rewards  of  careful  and  studious  investiga- 
tion. An  acquaintance  with  the  science  of  government, 
as  already  intimated,  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  indissolubly 
linked  with  a  knowledge  of  the  science  of  thought ;  and 
the  grandeur  of  the  theme  is  by  no  means  exaggerated  in 
the  matchless  apophthegm  of  Phavorinus,  "  On  earth  there 
is  nothing  great  but  man  ;  in  man  there  is  nothing  great  but 
mind."  The  branch  of  political  science,  however,  upon 
which,  in  the  proposed  discussion,  we  are  about  to  enter, 
like  the  one  we  have  just  dismissed,  presents  neither  a  play- 
ground for  the  imagination  nor  a  retreat  for  the  lover 
of  dreamland.  Its  principles  and  truths  are  not  scattered 
upon  the  surface  of  the  field  of  thought,  but,  like  the  rich- 
est veins  of  mineral  wealth,  lie  deeply  hidden  from  the  su- 
perficial gaze,  and  are  discernible  only  in  the  clear  white 
light  of  intelligent  reason.  The  investigation  of  these 
truths  is  a  difficult  yet  captivating  task;  and  to  every  citi- 
zen of  our  common  country  what  more  interesting  or  im- 
perative duty  than  that  of  sincerely  and  persistently  en- 
deavoring to  comprehend  the  causes,  necessities,  character 
and  reason  of  the  changes  in  an  organic  and  municipal 
code  whereunder  the  American  republic  is  either  advancing 
to  the  position  of  the  most  colossal  nation  upon  which  the 
sun  has  ever  shone,  or  else  hastening  to  a  national  over- 
throw more  disastrous  and  insurmountable  than  any  which 
has  draped  the  pages  of  history  since  the  downfall  of  the 
Roman  empire?  Familiarity  with  these  truths,  indeed,  on 
the  part  of  the  American  people,  as  elements  of  theoretical 


1 88          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

science  and  their  practical  application  as  an  art,  constitutes 
the  sole  instrumentality  whereby  we  are  to  prove  the  ability 
of  man  for  self-government. 

In  the  discussion  of  organic  and  municipal  law  in  the 
abstract,  the  former  is  entitled  to  precedence,  both  by 
reason  of  its  prior  creation  and  a  due  regard  for  logical 
propriety.  In  examining  the  existing  and  proposed  changes 
in  the  organic  and  municipal  law  of  the  United  States,  there- 
fore, the  line  of  argument  naturally  follows  in  the  same 
channel. 

The  topics  into  which  the  title  of  the  present  part  of  this 
treatise  regularly  resolves  itself  have  been  already  stated 
in  the  introductory  remarks  thereof — namely,  The  Consti- 
tutional Amendments,  Reconstruction,  Amnesty,  Force 
Legislation  and  Civil  Service.  These  will  constitute  the 
subjects  of  separate  and  distinct  chapters.  By  the  title  with 
which  the  first  chapter  is  designated  reference  is  only  had 
to  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments 
to  our  national  Constitution.  It  may  seem  a  too  general 
title  for  subject-matter  restricted  within  such  comparatively 
narrow  limits,  and  yet  it  is  consistent  with  the  more  general 
one  which  has  been  given  to  the  entire  treatise ;  for,  so  far 
as  constitutional  changes  are  concerned,  the  present  issues 
of  American  politics  have  their  origin  solely  in  the  amend- 
ments above  named.  The  prior  ones,  moreover,  have  not 
only  been  made  matters  of  historical  record,  but  been 
submitted  to  exhaustive  discussion  as  to  their  character, 
legality  and  bearings  upon  the  public  weal.  It  may  also 
seem  suicidal  to  rules  of  logic  to  sever  the  constitutional 
amendments  from  the  general  subject  of  Reconstruction 
with  which  the  second  chapter  is  entitled.  These  amend- 
ments, it  is  true,  are  an  integral  part  of  the  general  recon- 
struction of  our  Government  subsequent  to  the  late  civil 
war,  but  they  are  measures  of  reconstruction,  however, 


INDUCTIVE.  1 89 

aimed  at  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  while  the 
remaining  ones  simply  contemplate  changes  in  our  munici- 
pal code.  Their  separate  consideration  is  therefore  not 
only  proper,  but  more  conducive  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  same.  The  main  inquiry  will  now  be  proceeded 
with. 


I9O        THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS. 

The  Importance  of  the  Topic — The  Thirteenth  Amendment — The 
First  Fruit  of  the  Rebellion — Indications  of  the  Purpose  of  the 
North  to  Exterminate  Slavery — The  Confiscation  Acts  and  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamations  the  foundation  of  the  Amendment — The 
Origin  of  the  Amendment — The  Manner  and  Legality  of  its  Adop- 
tion— The  Question  discussed  at  length — The  Legality  of  its  Ratifi- 
cation by  the  States — The  Status  of  the  States  assuming  to 
Ratify — President  Lincoln  and  Reconstruction — President  Johnson 
and  Reconstruction — The  Constitutionality  of  the  Amendment — The 
same  examined  at  length — Minor  Collateral  Questions — Presidents 
Lincoln  and  Johnson's  courses  on  Reconstruction  compared — The 
same  defended — The  Effect  of  the  Amendment — The  Fourteenth 
Amendment — Introductory  Comment — The  Incompleteness  of  the 
Scheme — Its  Origin  due  to  both  Political  and  Moral  Causes — The 
Ends  sought  by  the  Change — The  History  and  Legality  of  both  the 
Congressional  Vote  proposing  the  Amendment  and  its  Ratification  by 
the  States — The  Status  of  the  States  assuming  to  Ratify — The  Ques- 
tion of  Suffrage — The  Constitutionality  of  the  Scheme — Citizenship 
— The  Amendment  analyzed — Distinction  between  Civil  and  Politi- 
cal Rights  and  Privileges — The  Resulting  Effect  of  the  Amendment 
— Monopolies — The  Rights  of  Corporations  and  Franchises  under 
the  Amendment — The  case  of  the  New  Orleans  Slaughter-house 
Company — The  Full  Effect  of  the  Amendment  stated — The  Fifteenth 
Amendment — Its  Cause  and  Origin — The  Enfranchisement  of  the 
Blacks — The  Legality  of  its  Ratification — The  Status  of  the  States 
assuming  to  Ratify — The  Right  of  a  State  to  withdraw  its  Assent 
considered — The  Constitutionality  of  the  Amendment — Discussed 
at  length — The  Extent  of  the  Power  of  Amendment — The  Results  of 
the  Amendment  fully  defined — Woman  Suffrage  under  the  Amend- 
ments— The  alleged  Merits  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ments criticised  in  detail — Deduction  from  Uie  Criticism — The  Case 
of  the  Blacks — Concluding  Comment. 

THE  assumption  must  not  be  made  in  the  outset  of  this 
discussion  that  it  will  be  conducted   in  detail  as  to 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL   AMENDMENTS.        19 1 

every  phase  of  the  subject  presented  for  investigation. 
Such  a  course  for  the  purposes  of  this  treatise  is  absolute- 
ly impossible,  for  each  of  the  amendments  hereinbefore 
named  in  that  respect  furnishes  ample  material  for  an  entire 
volume.  Properly  speaking,  the  question  presents  itself 
in  five  different  aspects — namely,  the  cause  and  origin  of 
these  amendments ;  the  history  and  legality  of  their  adop- 
tion ;  the  purposes  they  were  intended  to  serve ;  their  con- 
stitutionality ;  and  their  resulting  effect  upon  the  public, 
with  a  criticism  of  their  merits.  Search  for  an  appropriate 
place  wherein  this  naturally-suggested  line  of  discussion 
may  be  curtailed  is  attended  with  great  difficulty  and 
embarrassment,  for  every  feature  thereof,  to  every  lover  of 
political  science  at  least,  is  so  fascinating  in  its  character 
that  it  seems  almost  a  sacrilege  to  refuse  it  an  acquaintance. 
The  moral  causes  wherein  these  amendments  are  rooted 
were  the  growth  of  five  hundred  years  of  civilization  and 
Christianity ;  the  period  of  their  creation  is  laid  in  one  of 
the  most  important  epochs  of  the  world's  progress ;  and 
the  history  thereof  is  a  narrative  of  grave  and  ingenious 
legislation.  The  purposes  they  are  intended  to  serve  are 
linked  with  the  future  destinies  of  the  universe ;  their 
constitutionality  furnishes  a  most  captivating  theme  of  dis- 
cussion ;  while  their  resulting  effect  upon  the  national  wel- 
fare is  massing  itself  into  a  reservoir  of  facts  from  which 
moral  forces  are  marshaling  that  will  tell  with  tremendous 
import  not  only  upon  the  future  of  this  republic,  but  upon 
the  science  of  government,  the  cause  of  civilization  and 
the  advancement  of  Christianity  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  entire  glol>e. 

An  intemlment  will  be  made  to  scan  the  whole  of  this 
colossal  subject,  and  no  important  particular  will  be  inten- 
tionally omitted.  Of  these  amendments  separately  and 
chronologically. 


1 92         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT. 

The  Thirteenth  amendment  to  our  Constitution  is  an 
embodiment  of  public  sentiment  germinated  upon  the  ruins 
of  Sumter  in  the  spring  of  1861,  and  crystallized  into  an 
article  of  organic  law  in  the  winter  of  1865.  It  is  the  ex- 
ponent of  a  principle,  it  is  true,  for  the  national  recogni- 
tion of  which  a  small  and  respectable  yet  indiscreet  and 
impolitic  organization  had  incessantly  striven  from  a  period 
as  remote  as  the  autumn  of  1833.  The  tenets  of  this  or- 
ganization, however,  in  no  respect  were  ever  indorsed 
by  anything  but  what  seemed  a  hopeless  minority,  at  the 
North  even,  until  after  the  opening  of  hostilities,  at  which 
time  the  main  principle  of  its  creed,  though  not  its  minor 
doctrines,  soon  developed  itself  into  the  prime  issue  of  the 
conflict,  and  received  the  affirmation  of  the  major  portion 
of  the  loyal  population.  It  is  peculiarly  interesting  to 
trace  the  growth  of  this  public  sentiment  during  the  four 
years  above  named. 

It  was  only  about  thirty  days  prior  to  the  inauguration 
of  the  war  that  the  following  joint  resolution  engaged  the 
serious  attention  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  as  a  compro- 
mise measure  for  the  conciliation  of  the  South,  upon  the 
propriety  of  which  the  national  legislature  and  the  loyal 
community  at  large  were  about  equally  divided  : 

"Resolved,  etc.,  That  the  following  article  be  proposed 
to  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States  as  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which,  when  ratified 
by  three-fourths  of  said  legislatures,  shall  be  valid  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  as  a  part  of  the  said  Constitution — 
namely : 

"ART.  13.  No  amendment  shall  be  made  to  the  Constitu- 
tion which  will  authorize  or  give  to  Congress  the  power  to 
abolish  or  interfere,  within  any  State,  with  the  domestic 
institutions  thereof,  including  that  of  persons  held  to  labor 
or  service  by  the  laws  of  said  State." 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         193 

This  and  other  concurrent  efforts  for  the  prolongation  of 
peace  between  the  two  sections,  however,  were  dissolved 
by  the  smoke  of  battle  in  Charleston  harbor,  and  the  artil- 
lery of  Beauregard,  though  it  demolished  the  walls  of  a 
Federal  fortress,  swept  the  foundations  from  slavery,  and 
sounded  the  death-knell  of  the  institution  whose  extension 
it  sought  to  accomplish.  Important  evidences  of  the 
change  of  public  opinion  at  the  North  in  this  connection 
were  seen  during  1861  in  the  confiscation  act  of  Congress, 
and  in  the  following  year  in  the  abolition  of  the  measures 
which  had  legalized  slavery  in  New  Mexico  in  1859,  a  final 
extinction  of  the  institution  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
additional  measures  of  confiscation,  and  the  initiatory  proc- 
lamation of  freedom  for  the  slaves.  The  year  1863,  more- 
over, witnessed  the  growth  of  this  public  sentiment  in  the 
second  decree  of  emancipation  and  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  Territories,  while  the  next  succeeding  year  recorded 
the  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  law. 

In  all  these  measures  indication  is  seen  of  the  tendency 
of  the  loyal  will  for  an  extermination  of  slavery,  but  the 
confiscation  acts  of  1861  and  1862,  and  the  Emancipation 
Proclamations  of  1862  and  1863,  alone  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  whereby  that  end  was  finally 
attained.  In  this  connection  these  particular  measures  will 
not  engage  attention  except  for  a  mere  statement  of  their 
general  import;  their  full  examination  will  be  connected 
with  a  discussion  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  amendment 
now  before  us.  The  confiscation  act  of  1861,  stating  it 
very  briefly,  provided  that  any  and  every  slaveholder  who 
should  require  his  slaves  to  engage,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  disloyal  forces, 
should  forfeit  all  further  claim  to  service  of  said  slaves  in 
all  cases  whatsoever.  The  act  of  July,  1862,  moreover, 
provided  "that  all  slaves  of  persons  who  shall  hereafter  be 
engaged  in  rebellion  against  the  Government  of  the  United 

17  I 


194         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

States,  or  who  shall  in  any  way  give  aid  or  comfort  thereto, 
escaping  from  such  persons  and  taking  refuge  within  the 
lines  of  the  army ;  and  all  slaves  captured  from  such  per- 
sons or  deserted  by  them,  and  coming  under  the  control  of 
the  Government  of  the  United  States ;  and  all  slaves  of 
such  persons  found  on  [or]  being  within  any  place  occupied 
by  rebel  forces  and  afterward  occupied  by  the  forces  of  the 
United  States — shall  be  deemed  captives  of  war,  and  shall 
be  for  ever  free  of  their  servitude,  and  not  again  held  as 
slaves."  The  initiatory  Emancipation  Proclamation  of 
September,  1862,  contained  the  following  provision : 
"That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons 
held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or  designated  part  of  a 
State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward  and  for 
ever  free ;  and  the  executive  Government  of  the  United 
States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof, 
will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons, 
and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or  any 
of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  free- 
dom." The  final  proclamation  of  freedom  of  January  i, 
1863,  declared  all  slaves  in  the  rebellious  section  absolutely 
and  for  ever  free.  These  executive  measures  will  not  be 
given  in  detail.  Their  substance  is  essentially  as  above 
stated. 

At  the  present  stage  of  this  preliminary  narrative  we  find 
the  proximate,  immediate  origin  of  the  Thirteenth  amend- 
ment. Congressional  and  executive  action,  the  latter 
spurred  by  the  former,  and  both  urged  on  by  the  people  at 
large,  during  the  period  of  four  years  we  have  so  hastily 
traversed,  had  constantly  looked  to  a  total  extinction  of 
slavery — an  eradication  of  the  evil  which  had  precipitated 
the  war.  The  measures  last  above  named  had  been  devised 
and  promulgated  for  this  purpose  simply  as  war-measures, 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         1$$ 

their  authors  for  the  most  part  claiming  an  authority  for 
such  action  in  the  usual  war-powers  of  Government,  and 
not  by  reason  of  express  authority  conferred  by  the  Con- 
stitution. This  was  entirely  so  as  to  the  Emancipation 
Proclamations,  and  to  a  great  extent  as  to  the  acts  of  con- 
fiscation. How  far  these  measures  are  associated  with,  and 
form  a  basis  for,  the  constitutionality  of  the  Thirteenth 
amendment  will  hereafter  appear.  In  view  of  a  struggle 
forced  by  the  South  for  the  preservation  and  extension  of 
slavery,  which  had  cost,  thus  far,  nearly  a  million  of  lives 
and  seven  thousand  millions  of  treasure,  the  popular  will 
of  the  loyal  North  was  not  content  to  leave  the  measures 
last  above  named  the  only  insurers  of  its  death.  As  a  burial, 
therefore,  from  which  there  could  be  no  resurrection,  the 
perpetual  inhibition  of  our  national  charter  thereon  was 
demanded  and  obtained.  The  history  of  the  adoption  of 
the  Thirteenth  amendment,  and  the  legality  of  the  form 
thereof  (that  is,  the  legality  of  the  form  of  adoption,  and 
not  the  constitutionality  of  the  amendment  itself),  are  now 
in  order. 

The  text  of  the  amendment  is  as  follows : 

"  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a 
punishment  for  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been 
duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United  States  or  any 
place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction. 

"  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by 
appropriate  legislation." 

A  joint  resolution  providing  for  the  submission  of  a  pro- 
posed amendment  to  the  Constitution,  as  above,  to  the 
States  for  ratification,  was  taken  up  in  the  Senate  February 
i,  1861,  and  after  lengthy  and  varied  discussion  in  the 
mean  time,  came  to  a  final  vote  April  8  of  the  same  year, 
and  was  thereby  adopted.  The  same  was  called  for  con- 
sideration in  the  House  June  15  of  the  same  year,  and  after 
a  desultory  debate  was  rejected.  The  resolution  came  be- 


196          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

fore  the  House  again,  however,  December  i5th  of  the 
same  year,  and  on  January  6,  1865,  debate  upon  the  same  was 
resumed,  which  continued  till  the  izth  of  that  month, 
at  which  time  further  consideration  of  the  measure  was 
adjourned  for  two  weeks.  January  31,  1865,  the  resolution 
was  again  called  and  adopted. 

The  only  important  objection  made  against  the  legality 
of  the  vote  was,  that  a  legal  number  of  members  did  not 
participate  in  the  proceedings.  The  protest  was  based 
upon  that  portion  of  the  Fifth  Article  of  the  Constitution 
which  provides  that  "  Congress,  whenever  two-thirds  of 
both  Houses  shall  deem  it  necessary,  shall  propose  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution,"  etc.  etc.  The  construction 
put  upon  the  foregoing  by  the  Democratic  members  of 
Congress  was,  that  "two-thirds  of  both  Houses"  meant 
two-thirds  of  all  the  Senators  and  Representatives  to  which 
both  the  loyal  and  disloyal  States  would  be  entitled,  and 
that  a  legal  two-thirds,  for  the  purposes  of  amendment, 
must  be  two-thirds  of  the  total  representation  of  all  the 
States,  as  aforesaid.  As  the  representation  in  Congress 
had  been  reduced  to  such  an  extent,  by  the  secession  of 
several  States,  that  two-thirds  of  all  the  members  to  which 
both  loyal  and  disloyal  States  would  have  been  entitled 
were  not  present  and  voting  upon  the  resolution,  such  a 
construction  would  have  annulled  the  proceedings.  Both 
the  Senate  and  House,  however,  assumed  the  position  that 
"two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress"  meant  two- 
thirds  of  the  number  necessary  for  the  transaction  of  busi- 
ness; that  is,  two-thirds  of  a  quorum.  The  latter  is  defined 
to  be,  by  the  Constitution  itself,  "a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bers," and  necessarily,  moreover,  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bers recognized  by  the  two  Houses,  for  the  Constitution 
declares  that  "  each  House  shall  be  the  judge  of  the  elec- 
tions, returns  and  qualifications  of  its  own  members."  A 
majority  of  the  members  of  both  Houses,  as  aforesaid, 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS. 

were  present  on  the  occasion,  and  two-thirds  of  such  ma- 
jority cast  their  ballot  in  favor  of  the  resolution  ;  so  that, 
by  the  rulings  of  the  Chair  in  both  branches  of  Congress, 
the  vote  was  a  legal  one.  These  rulings,  moreover,  although 
apparently  unknown  to  either  the  Senate  or  House  (or  per- 
haps we  had  better  say,  by  them  forgotten — at  least  no 
notice  was  made  thereof),  were  amply  warranted  by  force 
of  both  ancient  and  modern  precedent.  At  the  first  session 
of  Congress,  when  the  first  ten  amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution were  proposed,  the  same  objection  was  made  in  the 
Senate,  and  the  Chair  ruled  that  two-thirds  of  the  mem- 
bers present — that  is,  two- thirds  of  a  quorum — were  suffici- 
ent to  pass  a  resolution  for  the  proposal  of  said  amendments 
to  the  States.  Again,  in  the  spring  of  1861,  another  pre- 
cedent— which,  as  an  historical  incident,  in  the  light  of  the 
peculiar  positions  wherein  certain  parties  were  placed,  is  to 
say  the  least  amusing — was  put  upon  record  in  the  major 
house  of  Congress.  John  C.  Breckenridge  was  at  that 
time  President  of  the  Senate,  and  on  the  second  day  of 
March  of  the  year  above  named  a  joint  resolution  pro- 
posing, as  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  the  article 
given  in  full  at  the  commencement  of  this  chapter,  restrain- 
ing Congress  from  all  subsequent  legislation  tending  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  engaged  the  attention  of  that  body. 
The  representation  in  the  Senate  had  then  been  reduced, 
by  the  effect  of  secession,  to  less  than  two-thirds  of  the 
number  of  members  to  which  both  the  loyal  and  disloyal 
States  would  have  been  entitled,  and  Senator  Trumbull 
(Republican)  of  Illinois  raised  the  same  objection  which 
the  Democrats  did  four  years  later  at  the  time  of  the  adop- 
tion of  the  resolution  whereby  the  present  Thirteenth  amend- 
ment was  to  be  proposed  to  the  States  for  ratification. 
Senator  Pugh  (Democrat)  of  Ohio,  however,  made  the  point 
brought  forward  by  the  Republicans  again  at  the  time  last 
above  named,  that  "two-thirds  of  both  Houses"  meant 
17  » 


THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

two-thirds  of  a  majority  of  the  members  thereof,  and 
President  Breckenridge  promptly  sustained  the  same. 

Looking  at  the  question  in  the  abstract,  without  regard 
to  precedent,  the  opinion  held  by  the  Democrats  in  1861 
and  the  Republicans  in  1865  is  pre-eminently  the  sounder 
doctrine.  "Two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress!" 
Can  it  mean  a  numerical  two-thirds  of  fifty,  sixty  or  one 
hundred/mvz//?  individuals  scattered  about  the  country  in 
a  non-official  capacity  ?  The  Constitution  had  reference 
to  a  deliberative,  legislative  body,  to  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives assembled  in  an  official  capacity  for  the  transaction 
of  official  business — that  is,  legislation  ;  and  seemingly  to 
avoid  the  uncertainty  which  would  arise  from  a  non-def- 
inition of  what  should  constitute  such  an  official  Senate  and 
House,  expressly  provided  that  "  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bers ' ' — of  the  individuals  in  their  private  capacity — should 
constitute  a  legal  official  quorum — a  legal  official  Senate  and 
a  legal  official  House.  This  provision  of  the  Constitution 
last  above  named  is  an  implied  denial  of  the  position  of 
the  Republicans  in  1861  and  the  Democrats  in  1865.  It 
determined  what,  numerically,  should  constitute  a  legislative 
Senate  and  House ;  and  a  legislative  Senate  and  House, 
constitutionally  defined  ("two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of 
Congress"),  must  mean  two-thirds  of  such  Houses  as  de- 
fined by  the  Constitution,  and  not  two-thirds  of  the  indi- 
vidual members,  which  the  Constitution  did  not  by  its 
words  at  any  time  contemplate.  The  legality  of  the  vote 
is  beyond  question.  We  now  come  to  a  consideration  of  a 
more  difficult  point — namely,  the  legality  of  the  ratification 
by  the  States. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  provides  that  pro- 
posed amendments  thereto  must  be  "ratified  by  the  legis- 
latures of  three-fourths  of  the  several  States"  before  they 
shall  become  an  integral  part  thereof.  The  Thirteenth 
amendment  was  promulgated  by  the  Secretary  of  State 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.          199 

December  18,  1865.  The  loyal  and  insurrectionary  States 
at  that  time  were  thirty-six  in  number — twenty-five  of  the 
former  and  eleven  of  the  latter.  The  question  arose,  in 
the  application  of  the.  clause  "  ratified  by  the  legislatures 
of  three-fourths  of  the  several  States,"  whether  the  assent 
of  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  whole  number  of 
States,  both  loyal  and  insurrectionary,  or  that  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  loyal  portion,  would  satisfy  this  constitutional 
requirement.  In  other  words,  Was  the  ratification  of 
nineteen  or  twenty-seven  State  legislatures  necessary  for  the 
adoption  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment?  The  latter  alter- 
native received,  in  a  quasi  manner,  executive  approval,  and 
the  assent  of  eight  quondam  disloyal  legislatures  was  in- 
voked to  legalize  the  amendment.  In  the  latter  alterna- 
tive it  will  be  perceived,  moreover,  that  the  legislative 
assent  of  two  insurrectionary  States  was  imperative  to 
legalize  the  amendment,  even  if  all  the  loyal  States  voted 
in  the  affirmative ;  and  in  this  latter  aspect  of  the  case,  in 
view  of  the  peculiar  status  of  the  eight  insurrectionary 
States  whose  legislatures  aided  in  the  ratification,  the  ques- 
tion is  a  very  grave  one  :  If  the  assent  of  three-fourths  of 
the  legislatures  of  all  the  States  was  requisite  for  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  has  such  amendment 
ever  received  a  legal  ratification  ? 

A  glimpse  at  the  reconstruction  measures  whereunder 
the  legislatures  of  the  eight  insurrectionary  States  were 
organized  which  aided  in  the  ratification  of  the  amend- 
ment is  here  necessary  for  an  intelligent  pursuance  of  this 
discussion.  The  first  attempt  at  reconstruction  assumed 
the  shape  of  an  executive  proclamation  under  date  of 
December  8,  1863,  whereby  President  Lincoln  offered  a 
pardon  to  the  masses  of  the  Southern  people  who  had 
engaged  in  the  rebellion,  upon  condition  of  their  affirming 
allegiance  to  the  United  States  Government  and  making 
oath  to  sustain  all  prior  and  subsequent  executive  and  legis- 


2OO         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

lative  action  in  reference  to  slavery.  This  done,  the  pro- 
clamation provided  for  the  organization  of  State  legislatures 
and  election  of  Senators  and  Representatives  to  Congress, 
without  any  intervention  of  the  .General  Government; 
whereupon  any  State  upon  such  basis  would  be  restored 
to  its  original  position  as  before  the  war.  Under  this  pro- 
clamation of  President  Lincoln,  Arkansas,  Virginia,  Ten- 
nessee and  Louisiana  adopted  free  State  constitutions  and 
forms  of  government,  and  ratified,  through  their  respective 
legislatures,  the  proposed  Thirteenth  amendment.  The 
organization  of  the  legislatures  whereby  the  above-named 
measures  were  adopted  was  made  in  Arkansas,  Virginia 
and  Louisiana  under  the  direction  and  supervision  of 
Generals  Steele,  Weitzell  and  Banks,  officers  commanding 
therein ;  while  in  Tennessee  such  organization  was  perfected 
under  the  orders  of  Andrew  Johnson,  military  governor 
appointed  for  that  State  by  President  Lincoln.  The  legis- 
latures and  constitutions  of  Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  more- 
over, had  been  organized  and  formed  prior  to  the  act  of 
Congress  described  in  the  next  succeeding  paragraph. 

Congress,  however,  in  the  summer  of  1864,  about  six 
months  subsequent  to  the  issuing  of  the  proclamation  above 
described,  passed  a  bill  for  the  purposes  of  reconstruction, 
which  provided  for  the  appointment  by  the  President  of 
provisional  governors  for  each  of  the  insurrectionary  States, 
who  should  proceed  to  call  conventions,  under  certain 
forms,  for  the  adoption  of  State  constitutions  and  the  organ- 
ization of  State  governments  in  their  several  departments. 
These  constitutions  were  required  by  this  bill  to  prohibit 
slavery,  and  the  bill,  moreover,  by  a  special  section,  de- 
clared slavery  absolutely  abolished  in  all  the  insurrection- 
ary States.  The  bill  was  passed  and  submitted  to  the  ex- 
ecutive for  his  approval  only  an  hour  before  the  final  ad- 
journment of  Congress.  Mr.  Lincoln  withheld  his  signa- 
ture on  account  of  the  temperate  and  weighty  reasons  found 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        2OI 

in  his  proclamation  following  the  bill,  under  date  of  July 
8  of  the  same  year,  and  the  measure,  consequently, 
never  became  a  law.  In  the  proclamation  above  named 
Mr.  Lincoln  fortified  his  position  in  regard  to  the  bill  on 
three  grounds — namely :  First,  he  was  unwilling  to  commit 
himself  exclusively,  without  further  deliberation,  to  any 
one  plan  of  reconstruction.  Second,  he  was  averse  to  de- 
claring the  free  State  constitutions  of  Arkansas  and  Louis- 
iana, above  described,  of  no  avail.  Third,  he  was  not  pre- 
pared to  commit  himself  to  the  opinion  that  Congress,  by 
an  act  of  legislation,  had  the  power  and  authority  to  abol- 
ish slavery.  The  proclamation  further  declared,  however, 
that  any  State  wishing  to  adopt  the  measures  of  the  bill  for 
purposes  of  reconstruction  would  receive  the  cordial  assist- 
ance of  the  executive.  It  is  thus  seen  that  three  insurrec- 
tionary States — Arkansas,  Virginia  and  Louisiana — reas- 
sumed  the  position  of  integral  States  of  the  Union  under 
Lincoln's  proclamation  of  December  8,  1863,  with  the 
intervention  of  the  General  Government  as  seen  in  the  offi- 
cial acts  of  the  executive  and  the  generals  before  named, 
while  Tennessee  reassumed  such  a  position  under  the  same 
proclamation  and  with  the  intervention  of  the  General 
Government,  such  intervention,  however,  being  exercised 
by  the  President  and  a  military'governor,  instead  of  the  of- 
ficer commanding  the  department;  all  four  of  the  States, 
moreover,  through  their  respective  legislatures,  giving  their 
sanction  to  the  Thirteenth  amendment.  Thus  far,  under 
President  Lincoln,  we  have  a  dual  policy  of  reconstruction, 
and  a  consequent  duplex  basis  of  ratification  by  the  insur- 
rectionary States. 

At  this  juncture  Mr.  Lincoln  died,  and  Andrew  Johnson 
succeeded  to  the  presidential  chair.  This  official  adopted 
a  policy  of  reconstruction  similar  to  the  plan  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, foreshadowed  in  his  proclamation  of  December  8, 
1863,  but  swerved,  by  reason  of  the  changed  condition  of 

12 


202          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

things,  from  the  course  of  his  predecessor  in  putting  the 
same  into  execution.  President  Johnson  pursued  a  policy 
of  reconstruction  with  the  intervention  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, and  thereby  followed  the  course  pursued  by  Mr. 
Lincoln ;  but  instead  of  exercising  such  intervention  through 
commanding  generals  or  military  governors,  he  placed  the 
insurrectionary  States  under  the  governorship  of  resident 
civilians.  Under  this  policy  of  President  Johnson,  North 
and  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Alabama  were  recon- 
structed and  ratified  the  proposed  Thirteenth  amendment. 
These,  with  the  four  States  reconstructed  under  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, already  named,  were  counted  in  the  "three-fourths 
of  the  several  States"  upon  the  ratification  of  whose  legis- 
latures the  amendment  was  officially  promulgated.  These 
eight  States,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind,  exercised  the  office 
of  ratification  upon  three  separate  bases  of  reconstruction. 

Returning  now  to  the  main  discussion,  if  the  assent  of 
three-fourths  of  the  legislatures  of  the  loyal  States  was 
alone  necessary  to  legalize  the  adoption  of  the  amendment, 
such  legality  was  assured,  as  nineteen  loyal  States  so  put 
themselves  upon  record ;  but  if  the  concurrence  of  three- 
fourths  of  both  loyal  and  insurrectionary  States,  through 
their  legislatures,  was  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  such 
an  end,  then  the  legality  of  the  form  of  adoption  of  the 
amendment  depends  upon  the  legality  of  the  reconstruction 
of  the  eight  States  hereinbefore  named.  Let  us  seek  a  so- 
lution of  the  question  in  the  briefest  manner  possible. 

The  proposition  is  asserted  that,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Thirteenth  amendment,  "three-fourths  of  the  legislatures 
of  the  several  States"  did  mean  three-fourths  of  the  entire 
number,  both  loyal  and  insurrectionary.  If  the  contrary 
principle  is  maintained,  we  admit  at  once  the  dogma  of 
absolute  State  sovereignty,  and  the  consequent  doctrine  of 
secession.  A  discussion  of  this  doctrine  is  not  relevant  in 
this  connection,  but  is  nevertheless  inferentially  denied. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2O$ 

Our  national  Government  is  not  a  compact  of  the  States, 
but  a  creation  ab  initio,  distinct  in  itself,  of  the  people  at 
large.  The  truth  of  this  is  evidenced  both  in  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  formation  of  our  present  national  Consti- 
tution and  Government  and  in  the  letter  of  that  instrument 
itself.  The  old  Confederation  which  existed  prior  to  our 
present  Government  was  a  State  league.  The  General 
Government  thereunder  was  powerless  to  enforce  a  solitary 
measure  of  diplomacy,  legislation,  war  or  any  other  pecu- 
liar policy  of  its  own  counter  to  the  wishes  of  the  several 
States.  It  was  formed  by  the  States,  was  responsible  to,  and 
acted  through,  the  States — had  no  sanction  whatever  for  its 
laws,  and  no  hold  upon  individuals.  The  national  ruin  to 
which  the  country  was  rapidly  tending  under  the  Confed- 
eration led  the  people  of  the  several  States  to  disenthrall 
themselves  from  its  suicidal  sway  by  the  formation  of  our 
present  Constitution ;  and  the  grand  idea  which  underlaid 
all  the  deliberations  for  that  end  was  to  establish  a  national 
government  independent  of  the  States,  with  an  absolute 
possession  of  separate  and  supreme  power,  responsible 
alone  to  the  people — a  government  of  individuals,  and  not 
of  State  corporations.  The  preamble  of  our  national  char- 
ter asserts  this  principle  in  the  outset :  "  We,  the  people  of 
the  United  States,"  etc.  etc.  Thus  constituted  by  the 
people  a  distinct,  separate  and  independent  entity  of  itself, 
it  is  a  unit,  and  consequently  inseparable  and  indissoluble, 
except  by  means  of  absolute  force — by  revolution. 

In  this  immediate  connection  the  question  arises  around 
which  crystallizes  the  germ  of  the  issue  now  under  discus- 
sion— namely,  At  what  point  do  "  three-fourths  of  the  leg- 
islatures of  the  several  States  "  cease  to  mean  three-fourths 
of  the  legislatures  of  all  the  States  whose  people  have  been 
once  admitted  to  the  Union?  The  question  is  plain  and 
easy  of  solution  :  The  Government  being  a  unit,  it  is  clearly 
at  that  point  where  a  rebellious  faction  has  conquered  for 


2O4          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

itself  an  independence  and  separate  existence  which  is  rec- 
ognized by  the  General  Government  against  which  it  rebelled. 
This  separate  existence  and  independence  our  Government 
never  accorded  the  rebellious  faction— -force  had  not  over- 
come it;  consequently,  the  Government  being  a  unit, 
"three-fourths  of  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States" 
for  the  purpose  of  ratifying  the  Thirteenth  amendment 
meant  three-fourths  of  all  the  States  ever  admitted  to  the 
Union. 

Our  discussion  of  the  legality  of  the  form  of  the  ratifica- 
tion of  this  amendment  is  now  narrowed  down  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  legality  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  eight  se- 
ceded States  whose  legislatures  participated  therein.  The 
abstract  right  of  the  General  Government  to  reconstruct 
the  insurrectionary  States  rested  upon  a  very  narrow  foun- 
dation. The  right  of  such  action  was  derived  from  the 
constitutional  authority  of  the  United  States  to  exercise  its 
powers  within  State  limits ;  and  this  authority  is  confined 
within  the  following  words  of  our  national  charter — 
namely  :  "  The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State 
in  this  Union  a  republican  form  of  government."  As  to 
what  constitutes  "a  republican  form  of  government,"  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  the  case  of  Luther 
vs.  Borden  (7  Howard  U.  S.  i),  held  that  the  President 
and  both  Houses  of  Congress  formed  the  proper  tribunal  to 
decide.  That  is,  it  is  a  political  and  not  a  judicial  ques- 
tion. The  deduction  is  properly  made  from  this  proposi- 
tion that  such  a  political  reorganization  of  the  insurrec- 
tionary States  as  gives  them,  in  the  opinion  of  the  President 
and  both  Houses  of  Congress,  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment, is  a  legal  reconstruction  of  said  States.  That  is,  a 
plan  of  reconstruction  approved  by  both  Congress  and  the 
executive  represents  the  constitutional  means  for  placing 
the  insurrectionary  States  in  a  position  to  legally  ratify  the 
proposed  amendment. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2O$ 

At  the  time  the  present  Thirteenth  amendment  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  States  for  ratification  the  insurrectionary  por- 
tions of  the  same  were  held  either  by  the  rebel  authorities 
or  else  by  the  military  power  of  the  United  States.  Owing 
to  this  condition  of  things  the  point  has  been  made  that  the 
only  proper  and  legal  means  by  which  the  executive  could 
assume  control  of  said  States  for  purposes  of  reconstruction 
was  through  the  exercise  of  his  authority  as  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army  and  navy.  This  method,  it  is  true,  has 
been  held  a  legal  one  by  our  Supreme  Court,  but  it  has  not 
been  held  the  only  one.  The  sounder  doctrine  is,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  discussion  in  the  next  preceding  para- 
graph, that  such  means  may  be  made  use  of  for  the  pur- 
pose of  reconstruction,  for  the  purpose  of  guaranteeing 
to  the  States  a  republican  form  of  government,  as  shall 
meet  the  approval  of  the  executive  and  both  Houses  of 
Congress. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  legislatures  of  eight  in- 
surrectionary States  aided  in  the  ratification  of  the  present 
Thirteenth  amendment.  Of  these,  Arkansas,  Virginia, 
Tennessee  and  Louisiana  were  reconstructed  under  a  mere 
proclamation  of  President  Lincoln,  unsupported  by  any  bill 
or  measure  of  Congress,  and  North  and  South  Carolina, 
Georgia  and  Alabama  under  a  similar  policy  of  President 
Johnson,  differing  from  that  of  President  Lincoln  only  in 
the  manner  of  execution.  Upon  the  premise,  then,  as  here- 
inbefore maintained,  that  such  a  reconstruction  is  alone 
legal  as  is  approved  by  both  Congress  and  the  executive, 
the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  foregoing  would  at 
first  glance  appear  to  be  that  none  of  the  eight  insurrec- 
tionary States  above  named  were  legally  reorganized  at  the 
time  of  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment. 
Congress,  however,  failed  to  express  any  disapproval  of 
such  reorganization  until  March  2,  1867,  as  will  hereafter 
appear;  that  is,  it  did  not  until  then  declare  against  the 
18 


206         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

same  in  a  legal,  official  method — namely,  legislation.  The 
act  last  above  named,  moreover,  which  consigns  the  lately 
insurrectionary  States  to  a  second  reconstruction  and  de- 
clares their  governments  illegal,  has  no  restrospective  effect ; 
which  fact,  in  connection  with  the  prior  passive  approval 
by  Congress  of  the  executive  policy  of  reconstruction, 
legally  as  well  as  reasonably  implied  from  its  official  silence 
thereon,  validates  all  measures  instituted  for  the  restoration 
of  the  South  and  acts  done  thereunder,  thus  removing  the 
apparent  difficulty  in  the  due  ratification  of  the  amend- 
ment. 

In  the  case  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Articles  no 
such  difficulty  exists,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  examination 
thereof.  The  one  first  named,  indeed,  has  been  declared 
valid  by  a  joint  resolution  of  Congress,  which  action  re- 
moves all  possibility  of  doubt,  as  an  approval  of  the  article 
itself  sanctions  all  the  means  whereby  the  ratification  of  the 
same  was  secured.  A  similar  resolution  in  reference  to  the 
Thirteenth  and  Fifteenth  Articles  would  be  eminently 
proper,  and  render  the  validity  of  the  last  three  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution  invulnerable  in  every  respect, 
although,  it  must  be  confessed,  by  a  somewhat  slovenly 
process.  A  preconcerted  and  perfected  plan  of  reconstruc- 
tion between  President  Lincoln  and  Congress  in  1864 
would  have  avoided  a  great  deal  of  confusion  and  disorder, 
and  rendered  unnecessary  no  small  amount  of  roundabout 
legislation. 

The  validity  of  the  vote  in  Congress  proposing  the 
amendment,  and  the  legality  of  the  ratification  thereof  by 
the  States  having  been  sustained,  an  examination  of  the 
constitutionality  of  the  amendment  itself  is  now  in  order. 
A  discussion  of  this  phase  of  the  subject,  although  entirely 
legal  in  its  bearings,  cannot,  of  course,  in  consideration  of 
the  purpose  of  this  treatise,  be  conducted  in  a  purely  legal 
manner,  with  full  citations  of  authorities  and  precedents, 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2O/ 

nor  in  the  style,  moreover,  of  a  text-book  upon  legal  topics. 
This  examination  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  amend- 
ment, then,  will  be  made  almost  wholly  in  the  light  of 
principle,  and  such  principles,  moreover,  as  require  no  in- 
vocation of  either  cases  or  precedents  to  corroborate  their 
truth  or  validity,  but  which,  by  reason  of  their  long  adju- 
dication, are  everywhere  regarded  as  fundamental  elements 
of  constitutional  law.  This,  too,  is  the  most  immovable 
basis  of  all  legal  discussion  whatsoever. 

The  power  and  authority,  as  well  as  the  form,  for  amend- 
ing the  Constitution  is  conferred  and  prescribed  solely 
by  that  instrument  itself  in  the  words  of  the  Fifth  Article, 
reference  to  which  may  be  had  if  desired.  The  pur- 
pose which  the  Thirteenth  amendment  was  intended  to 
serve  was  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  main  inquiry  in 
the  outset  of  this  discussion  consequently  is,  Does  the  Con- 
stitution authorize  an  amendment  thereto  which  shall  ac- 
complish that  result  ?  An  answer  to  this  interrogatory  ne- 
cessitates a  brief  preliminary  statement  of  the  kind  of 
powers  which  the  Constitution  confers,  and  the  principles 
which  apply  to  the  exercise  thereof.  These  powers  are 
special,  general  and  implied  ;  and  they  exist  either  affirma- 
tively or  negatively — affirmatively,  when  they  are  vested  in 
certain  parties  by  a  direct  affirmative  grant ;  negatively, 
when  they  are  vested  in  such  parties  by  reason  of"  their  pos- 
session and  exercise  being  forbidden  and  prohibited  to  all 
others.  In  the  case  of  special  and  general  powers,  if  both 
bear  upon  the  same  subject-matter  the  force  of  the  former 
overrides  the  latter,  in  reference  to  such  subject-matter,  to 
the  extent  which  the  letter  and  spirit  of  such  special  power 
o|>erates  thereon.  In  the  case  of  general  and  implied  pow- 
ers the  same  rule  applies,  and  the  former  supersede  the  lat- 
ter, in  reference  to  the  same  subject-matter,  to  the  extent 
above  named.  The  same  principle  attaches  to  the  exercise 
of  these  powers,  moreover,  when  their  aid  is  invoked  for 


2C>8         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  sanction  of  some  general  act  which  with  difficulty  finds 
authority  in  the  letter  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  thus  seen 
that  in  all  cases  special  have  the  precedence  of  general,  and 
the  latter  supersede  implied,  powers  as  conferred  by  our  or- 
ganic law.  Another  principle  of  vital  importance  which 
demands  association  herewith  is,  that  every  constitutional 
power  is  independent  and  untrammeled,  and  the  legal  ex- 
ercise thereof  may  be  invoked  in  all  cases  without  any  re- 
striction save  that  which  is  found  in  the  letter  of  the  Con- 
stitution itself.  In  the  case  of  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  in  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  Chief-Justice  Marshall  laid 
down  the  foregoing  proposition  in  his  usual  terse,  graceful 
and  inimitable  rhetoric,  as  follows — namely  :  "  Every  power 
granted  by  the  Constitution  is  complete  in  itself,  may  be 
exercised  to  its  utmost  extent,  and  acknowledges  no  limita- 
tion except  that  which  is  written  in  the  Constitution."  As 
an  answer  to  the  objection  often  raised  of  the  probable 
evils  which  may  flow  from  the  right  to  such  an  unqualified 
exercise  of  constitutional  power,  Justice  Marshall  in  the 
same  case  further  says:  "The  wisdom  and  the  discretion 
of  Congress,  their  identity  with  the  people,  and  the  influ- 
ence which  their  constituents  possess  at  elections,  are  in 
this,  as  in  many  other  instances — as  that,  for  example,  of  de- 
claring war — the  sole  restraints  on  which  the  people  have 
relied  to  secure  them  from  its  abuse.  They  are  the  re- 
straints on  which  the  people  must  often  rely  in  all  repre- 
sentative governments." 

In  the  light  of  these  general,  fundamental  principles  at- 
tention is  now  recalled  to  the  interrogatory  propounded  at 
the  commencement  of  the  next  preceding  paragraph — 
namely  :  "  Does  the  Constitution  authorize  an  amendment 
thereto  which  shall  abolish  slavery?"  What  is  the  general 
power  of  amendment  conferred  by  the  Constitution  ?  It  is 
contained  in  the  Fifth  Article  thereof — that  is : 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2OQ 

"ARTICLE  V. 

"The  Congress,  whenever  two-thirds  of  both  Houses 
shall  deem  it  necessary,  shall  propose  amendments  to  this 
Constitution,  or,  on  the  application  of  the  legislatures  of 
two-thirds  of  the  several  States,  shall  call  a  convention  for 
proposing  amendments,  which,  in  either  case,  shall  be  valid 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  part  of  this  Constitution, 
when  ratified  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the 
several  States,  or  by  conventions  in  three-fourths  thereof, 
as  the  one  or  the  other  mode  of  ratification  may  be  pro- 
posed by  the  Congress ;  provided,  that  no  amendment 
which  may  be  made  prior  to  the  year  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  eight  shall  in  any  manner  affect  the  first  and 
fourth  clauses  in  the  ninth  section  of  the  First  Article ;  and 
that  no  State,  without  its  consent,  shall  be  deprived  of  its 
equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate." 

Article  I. ,  Section  9,  clauses  first  and  fourth. 

First  clause:  "The  migration  or  importation  of  such 
persons  as  any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall  think  proper 
to  admit  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress  prior  to 
the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight." 

Fourth  clause:  "  No  capitation  or  other  direct  tax  shall 
be  laid,  unless  in  proportion  to  the  census  or  enumeration 
hereinbefore  directed  to  be  taken." 

Down  to  the  word  "Provided"  in  Article  V.  a  general 
unlimited  power  of  amendment  is  therein  conferred.  The 
remaining  portion  of  this  article,  and  the  first  and  fourth 
clauses  of  the  ninth  section  of  Article  I.  which  follow  it, 
are  to  be  read  and  construed  together,  and  thus  read  and 
construed  they  constitute  a  special,  passive  power  of  amend- 
ment. These  general  and  special  powers,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, bear  upon  the  same  subject-matter.  Recalling  the 
proposition  hereinbefore  laid  down,  that  when  general  and 

18* 


2IO         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

special  powers  are  considered  together  as  bearing  upon  the 
same  subject,  the  latter  supersede  the  former  to  the  extent 
with  which  by  their  letter  and  spirit  they  operate,  there- 
on— To  what  extent  is  the  general  power  of  amendment 
conferred  by  Article  V.,  down  to  the  word  "Provided," 
abridged  ?  Recourse  to  the  remaining  portion  of  Article 
V.,  and  to  the  first  and  fourth  clauses  of  the  ninth  section 
of  Article  I.,  replies:  "No  amendment  shall  be  made  to 
the  Constitution  whereby  either  the  African  slave-trade 
shall  be  prohibited  prior  to  the  year  1808,  a  capitation  or 
other  direct  tax  be  laid  disproportionately  to  the  census,  or 
by  which  a  State,  without  its  consent,  shall  be  deprived  of 
its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate."  The  foregoing  are  the 
only  special  powers  (passive,  to  be  sure)  in  the  Constitu- 
tion upon  the  subject  of  amendment.  Neither  by  Fetter 
nor  spirit  can  they  be  construed  to  so  abridge  the  general 
power  of  amendment  conferred  in  Article  V.  as  to  pro- 
hibit an  amendment  thereunder  whereby  slavery  shall  be 
abolished. 

Thus  much  as  to  the  general  and  special  powers  of  the 
Constitution  in  this  respect.  Let  us  see  if  an  inhibition 
upon  such  amendment  can  be  found  in  the  implied  powers 
of  our  organic  law.  It  is  here,  indeed,  that  most  of  the 
assaults  have  been  made  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the 
Thirteenth  amendment,  and  the  principal  form  of  attack 
thereunder  has  been  upon  the  theory  that  the  abolition  of 
slavery  by  a  constitutional  amendment  interfered  with  the 
rights  of  property  as  guaranteed  in  our  national  charter. 
The  plea  is  specious,  but  not  solid.  The  words  of  the 
Constitution  upon  which  this  argument  is  based  are  found 
in  Article  V.  of  the  amendments  thereto — namely:  "No 
person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or  property  with- 
out due  process  of  law."  Up  to  the  time  that  the 
Thirteenth  amendment  was  promulgated  the  Constitution 
impliedly,  and  to  the  opening  of  hostilities  the  United 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        211 

States  courts  expressly,  had  recognized  and  affirmed  the 
right  of  property  in  slaves.  Leaving  the  confiscation  acts 
of  Congress  and  the  Emancipation  Proclamations  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  for  the  present  out  of  this  inquiry,  and  the 
question  now  arises,  Does  the  Thirteenth  amendment  work 
such  a  deprivation  of  property  in  the  case  of  former 
owners  of  slaves  as  the  Constitution,  in  the  guarantee  above 
cited,  contemplates?  The  clause  quoted  contains  three 
distinct  guarantees.  The  first  two  are  purely  of  a  personal 
character,  and  the  last  one,  as  to  property,  alone  requires 
our  consideration,  except  so  far  as  analogous  reasoning  will 
assist  the  investigation.  An  interpretation  of  the  letter  of 
the  clause  above  named,  followed  by  a  construction  of  its 
spirit,  constitutes  the  path  through  which  we  may  be  led  to 
a  solution  of  the  point  in  issue.  The  meaning  of  the  letter 
has  received  repeated  and  consistent  definitions  in  our 
courts,  and  for  the  husbanding  of  space  a  discussion  of  this 
meaning  in  the  abstract  will  be  waived,  and  reliance  placed 
upon  these  adjudications  therefor,  as  they  are  in  no  respect 
contradictory  or  antagonistic.  The  substance  of  these 
decisions  finds  correct  expression  in  the  following  words — 
namely :  That  the  rights  of  personal  security,  personal 
liberty  and  private  property  shall  not  be  interfered  with, 
infringed  upon  or  destroyed  except  in  pursuance  of  a 
judgment  of  a  regularly-constituted  court  of  law,  obtained 
through  the  medium  of  a  regularly-conducted  suit  or  prose- 
cution therein,  according  to  the  legally-prescribed  rules 
therefor.  Or,  as  Justice  Bronson  of  New  York  expresses 
it  in  4  Hill.  146:  "The  meaning  of  the  section,  then, 
seems  to  be  that  no  member  of  the  Sfate  shall  be  dis- 
franchised or  deprived  of  any  of  his  rights  or  privileges 
unless  the  matter  shall  be  adjudged  against  him  upon  trial 
had  according  to  the  course  of  common  law.  The  words 
'due  process  of  law'  in  this  place  cannot  mean  less  than 
a  prosecution  or  suit  instituted  and  conducted  according  to 


212         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  prescribed  forms  and  solemnities  for  ascertaining  guilt 
or  determining  the  title  to  property." 

In  the  light  of  this  interpretation  of  the  letter  of  this  con- 
stitutional guarantee,  the  question  is  here  pertinent :  Can 
slavery  be  constitutionally  abolished  only  by  means  of  the 
enforcement  of  a  judgment  -of  a  court  of  law  obtained  in  a 
suit  against  the  several  owners  of  this  peculiar  species  of 
property  ?  A  construction  of  the  spirit  of  the  constitutional 
clause  under  discussion  now  in  order  will  furnish  an  answer 
to  the  interrogatory.  The  rule  of  constitutional  construc- 
tion announced  and  continuously  maintained,  without  any 
deviation,  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  is, 
that  no  meaning  shall  be  placed  upon  the  words  of  any 
particular  portion  of  the  instrument  which  shall  defeat  the 
exercise  of  another  power  therein  conferred,  unless  such 
words  are  in  the  form  of  a  special  power  upon  the  same 
subject-matter.  Therefore,  although  individuals  under  the 
Constitution  shall  not  be  immediately  deprived  of  property 
only  in  the  form  as  defined  by  Justice  Bronson  above,  still, 
another  separate  and  distinct  power  of  the  Constitution, 
like  the  power  of  amendment,  may  be  exercised,  even 
though,  in  its  secondary  and  more  remote  effect,  it  works  a 
deprivation  of  property.  That  is,  notwithstanding  the 
Constitution  by  one  power  prohibits  the  deprivation  of 
property  except  by  due  process  of  law,  as  hereinbefore  de- 
fined, nevertheless  that  instrument  may  be  amended  under 
a  separate  and  distinct  power,  even  though  such  amend- 
ment eventuates,  in  a  remote  connection,  in  the  destruction 
of  the  property  in  slaves.  Any  other  construction  of  the 
Constitution,  indeed,  would  defeat  the  operation  of  the  en- 
tire instrument.  There  is  hardly  a  power  in  it  the  exercise 
of  which  might  not  be  totally  checked  by  setting  up  against 
it  the  words  of  some  other  power  upon  a  different  subject- 
matter  which  seemingly  contradict  it.  The  line  of  divis- 
ion is  that  heretofore  announced — namely,  the  exercise  of 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        21 3 

every  constitutional  power  is  distinct  and  independent  of 
itself,  except  when  restricted  by  a  more  special  power  upon 
the  same  subject.  The  words  of  Chief-Justice  Marshall  in 
Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  in  fact,  as  already  stated,  dispose  of 
the  whole  question  summarily  and  conclusively — namely : 
"Every  power  granted  by  the  Constitution  is  complete  in 
itself,  may  be  exercised  to  its  utmost  extent,  and  acknow- 
ledges no  limitation  except  that  which  is  written  in  the  Con- 
stitution." The  principle  herein  contended  for,  moreover, 
has  received  a  very  recent  reiteration  by  Justice  Strong  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  in  sustaining  the  constitutionality  of 
the  legal-tender  act.  We  have  taken  exceptions  to  this 
opinion,  as  a  whole,  in  a  prior  chapter,  but  the  soundness 
of  the  following  declaration  is  beyond  impeachment — 
namely :  "  The  provision  referred  to  has  always  been  under- 
stood to  refer  only  to  a  direct  appropriation,  and  not  to 
consequential  injuries  resulting  from  the  exercise  of  a  law- 
ful power." 

The  constitutionality  of  the  amendment  has  also  been 
questioned  on  the  ground  that  it  violated  another  provision 
of  our  organic  law,  which  forbids  the  taking  of  private  pro- 
perty for  public  uses  without  just  compensation.  The  ar- 
gument just  dismissed  is  a  sufficient  rebuttal  of  this  position, 
and  renders  a  detailed  discussion  thereof  entirely  unneces- 
sary. 

The  amendment  has  also  been  attacked  by  the  objection 
that,  as  the  General  Government  is  a  compact  of  the  States, 
it  must  be  assented  to  by  the  legislature  of  every  State  be- 
fore it  can  be  made  binding  thereon.  This  view,  of  course, 
is  a  perfect  absurdity,  as  the  allowance  of  the  claim  would 
set  at  defiance  the  entire  right  of  amendment  as  conferred 
in  Article  V.,  which  declares  that  the  assent  of  the  legisla- 
tures of  "three-fourths  of  the  several  States"  only  is  re- 
quired to  constitute  a  legal  ratification.  But  granting,  for 
the  moment,  the  conclusion  of  the  argument  correct,  the 


214         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

premise  that  this  Government  is  a  State  league  has  already 
been  proved  erroneous.  The  main  proposition  destroyed, 
all  conclusions  therefrom  share  in  the  demolition. 

The  argument  that  the  amendment  interferes  with  the 
implied  constitutional  guarantee  that  each  State  shall  be 
the  conservator  of  its  own  domestic  relations  is  also  an- 
swered by  the  position  maintained  as  to  the  force  of  gene- 
ral, special  and  implied  powers  upon  the  same  and  differ- 
ent subject-matter,  and  in  the  decision  of  Chief-Justice 
Marshall  in  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  already  cited. 

In  reference  to  these  implied  powers  of  the  Constitution 
in  this  connection,  allusion  has  thus  far  been  made  only  to 
those  which  have  been  alleged  to  militate  against  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  amendment.  Brief  reference  will  now 
be  had  to  one  or  two  powers  of  this  character  which  seem 
to  operate  conclusively  in  its  support.  The  special  power 
as  to  amendment  resulting  from  a  concurrent  construction 
of  the  proviso  of  Article  V.,  and  the  first  clause  of  the  ninth 
section  of  Article  I.,  prohibits  an  inhibition  upon  the  Af- 
rican slave-trade  prior  to  the  year  1808,  plainly  anticipating 
that  by  that  time  the  Constitution  would  be  changed  in 
reference  to  this  institution  of  slavery,  the  existence  of 
which  its  framers  would  not  admit  in  actual  words,  and 
which  obtained  a  prolongation  of  its  existence  thereunder 
as  being  the  only  immediate  basis  whereby  the  Confedera- 
tion could  be  abandoned  for  our  present  Government. 
There  are  historical  incidents,  moreover,  which  corrobo- 
rate this  view  of  the  question.  In  the  debates  upon  the 
formation  of  the  Constitution,  when  the  clause,  "  No  per- 
son shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without 
due  process  of  law,"  was  under  discussion,  the  South  Car- 
olina and  Virginia  delegation  insisted  that  "freeman" 
should  be  substituted  for  "person,"  and  "the  law  of  the 
land"  for  "due  process  of  law."  The  proposition  failed 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        21$ 

of  support,  the  intention  of  the  convention  tending  plainly 
to  a  refusal  of  any  permanent  recognition  of  slavery. 

The  validity  of  the  amendment,  moreover,  stands  upon 
other  grounds.  It  merely  proclaimed  in  an  article  of  con- 
stitutional law  the  existence  of  a  fact  already  accomplished 
by  the  legal  exercise  of  the  war-powers  of  Government,  the 
confiscation  acts  and  the  Emancipation  Proclamations. 
The  exercise  of  these  measures  was  in  direct  and  legal  pur- 
suance of  war-powers  which  attach  to  every  government  as 
a  means  of  weakening  the  strength  of  its  enemies  in  arms. 
The  first  aimed  to  destroy  the  property,  the  second  to  de- 
feat a  moral  means  of  support,  of  the  enemies  of  our  Gov- 
ernment. The  only  question  in  this  connection  is,  Were 
the  insurrectionary  masses  of  the  South  the  enemies  of  the 
United  States?  This  question  as  to  who  shall  be  regarded 
the  enemies  of  our  Government  has  been  repeatedly  held 
by  the  Supreme  Court  to  be  a  political  question,  and,  like 
all  other  political  questions,  in  accordance  with  a  long  series 
of  adjudications,  the  proper  tribunal  to  decide  upon  the 
merits  thereof  is  Congress  and  the  executive.  These  de- 
partments of  our  Government,  the  one  by  legislation  and 
the  other  by  official  proclamations  and  orders,  repeatedly 
hekl  the  insurrectionary  masses  of  the  South,  during  the 
years  1861-64  inclusive,  to  be  enemies  of  the  United  States. 
As  enemies  of  our  Government  the  latter  had  undoubted 
right,  by  force  of  the  war-powers  vested  therein,  to  adopt 
and  enforce  any  measure  which  would  tend  to  the  exhaus- 
tion of  the  rebellious  faction.  The  Emancipation  Procla- 
mations operated  in  this  direction,  as  they  enlisted  the  sym- 
pathies of  four  millions  of  blacks  in  the  enemy's  territory 
in  our  favor — created,  indeed,  an  army  of  occupation  to 
that  extent  in  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  country.  As  to  the 
form  of  exercising  this  war-power,  it  was  wholly  in  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  executive,  there  being  no  legal  precedent  for 
his  guidance.  The  confiscation  acts  operated  in  the  same 


216         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

direction,  as  they  gave  freedom  to  all  slaves  who  should 
escape  from  the  enemy's  territory  or  be  found  in  any 
portion  thereof  by  our  advancing  forces.  These  acts 
could  not  operate  beyond  this.  Confiscation  means  an 
appropriation  of  property,  and  the  latter  implies  pos- 
session. These  acts,  therefore,  were  powerless  to  lay 
hold  of  slaves  under  the  immediate  control  of  the  enemies 
of  our  Government,  but  when  they  had  escaped  from,  or 
were  found  by  our  armies  in,  the  enemy's  country,  there 
was  a  possession  which  warranted  a  resort  to  confiscation. 
The  manner  in  which  this  war-power  shall  be  exercised 
has  been  judicially  defined  in  the  case  of  the  Schooner 
Juniata  (i  Newberry  Adm.  352) — namely,  by  a  special  act 
of  Congress;  and  this  was  the  course  our  Government 
pursued. 

The  combined  operation  of  these  two  war-powers  of  Gov- 
ernment, therefore,  had  virtually  accomplished  what  the 
Thirteenth  amendment  to  our  organic  law  constitutionally 
declared.  The  latter,  as  it  were,  merely  made  a  statute — 
which  by  a  succeeding  statute  would  have  been  capable 
of  repeal — an  article  of  our  Constitution,  which  would  not 
be  subject  to  reversal  save  in  the  prescribed  constitutional 
form.  It  simply  husbanded  the  fruits  of  our  victories. 

We  are  thus,  by  force  of  this  discussion,  warranted  in 
asserting  that  the  resolution  proposing  the  Thirteenth 
amendment  was  legally  adopted  by  Congress,  that  the  same 
was  legally  ratified  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the 
several  States,  and  that  its  constitutionality  is  beyond  sus- 
picion. 

Of  its  eminent  desirability  no  words  are  needed  in 
support.  It  removed  the  only  stain  from  our  national 
escutcheon ;  the  lips  of  the  republic  ceased  thereby  to  utter 
a  libel  upon  liberty,  falsify  its  record  and  court  the  con- 
demnation of  God.  We  can  perhaps  summon  no  more 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2 1/ 

weighty,  elegant  or  scholarly  authority  to  our  support  in 
the  conclusion  of  this  discussion  than  to  quote  the  words  of 
William  Whiting,  the  able  solicitor  of  the  War  Department 
under  Lincoln,  who,  in  his  "War-Powers  of  Government," 
speaks  as  follows : 

"Among  the  war-measures  sanctioned  by  the  President, 
to  which  he  has  more  than  once  pledged  his  sacred  honor, 
and  which  Congress  has  enforced  by  solemn  laws,  is  the 
liberation  of  slaves.  The  Government  has  invited  them  to 
share  the  dangers,  the  honor  and  the  advantages  of  sustain- 
ing the  Union,  and  has  pledged  itself  to  the  world  for  their 
freedom.  Whatever  disasters  may  befall  our  arms,  what- 
ever humiliation  may  be  in  store  for  us,  it  is  earnestly  hoped 
that  we  may  be  saved  the  unfathomable  infamy  of  break- 
ing the  nation's  faith  with  Europe  and  with  colored  citizens 
and  slaves  in  the  Union. 

"If  the  rebellious  States  shall  attempt  to  return  to  the 
Union  with  constitutions  guaranteeing  the  perpetuity  of 
slavery,  if  the  laws  of  these  States  shall  be  again  revived 
and  put  in  force  against  free  blacks  and  slaves,  we  shall  at 
once  have  reinstated  in  the  Union,  in  all  its  force  and 
wickedness,  that  very  curse  which  has  brought  on  the  war 
and  all  its  terrible  train  of  sufferings.  The  war  is  fought 
by  slaveholders  for  the  perpetuity  of  slavery.  Shall  we 
hand  over  to  them,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  just  what  they 
have  been  fighting  for?  Shall  all  our  blood  and  treasure 
be  spilled  uselessly  upon  the  ground  ?  Shall  the  country 
not  protect  itself  against  the  evil  which  has  caused  all  our 
woes?  Will  you  breathe  new  life  into  the  strangled  serpent, 
when  without  your  aid  he  will  perish  ? 

"If  you  concede  State  rights  to  your  enemies,  what 
security  can  you  have  that  traitors  will  not  pass  State  laws 
which  will  render  the  position  of  the  blacks  intolerable  or 
rfi/ncf  them  all  io  slavery  ? 

"  Would  it  be  honorable  on  the  part  of  the  United  States 
i»  K 


218         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  free  these  men  and  then  hand  them  over  to  the  tender 
mercy  of  slave  laws  ? 

"  Will  it  be  possible  that  State  slave  laws  should  exist  and 
be  enforced  by  slave  States  without  overriding  the  rights 
guaranteed  by  the  United  States  law  to  men,  irrespective 
of  color,  in  the  slave  States  ? 

"  Will  you  run  the  risk  of  these  angry  collisions  of  State 
and  national  laws  while  you  have  the  remedy  and  antidote 
in  your  hands?" 

An  allusion  will  here  be  made  which,  in  some  respects, 
would  find  a  more  appropriate  place  at  the  close  of  our 
chapter  on  Reconstruction,  but  which,  for  many  reasons, 
and  principally  that  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at  this 
period,  is  more  pertinent  in  this  connection.  Reference  is 
had  to  the  respective  reconstruction  measures  of  Presidents 
Lincoln  and  Johnson.  We  propose  by  no  means  to  inter- 
pose a  defence  for  the  obstinate  indiscretions  of  the  latter 
official,  but  he  who  calmly  and  dispassionately  reviews  our 
political  history  in  this  one  particular  will  be  powerless  to 
detect  any  material  difference  in  the  measures  pursued  by 
these  two  executives  for  the  restoration  of  the  South. 
Under  Mr.  Lincoln  a  reorganization  of  the  legislatures 
and  State  governments  of  Virginia,  Arkansas,  Louisiana 
and  Tennessee  was  effected.  This  end  was  accomplished, 
moreover,  by  a  line  of  action  within  the  States  above  named 
in  direct  pursuance  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  of 
December  8.  1863,  the  gist  of  which,  in  reference  to  recon- 
struction, is  as  follows — namely  : 

"And  I  do  further  proclaim,  declare  and  make  known, 
that  whenever,  in  any  of  the  States  of  Arkansas,  Texas, 
Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Georgia, 
Florida,  South  Carolina  and  North  Carolina,  a  number  of 
persons,  not  less  than  one-tenth  in  number  of  the  votes 
cast  in  such  States  at  the  presidential  election  of  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty,  each 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2ig 

having  taken  the  oath  aforesaid,  and  not  having  since  vio- 
lated it,  and  being  a  qualified  voter  by  the  election  law  of 
the  State  existing  immediately  before  the  so-called  act 
of  secession,  and  excluding  all  others,  shall  re-establish  a 
State  government  which  shall  be  republican  and  in  no 
wise  contravening  said  oath,  such  shall  be  recognized  as 
the  true  government  of  the  State,  and  the  State  shall  receive 
thereunder  the  benefits  of  the  constitutional  provision  which 
declares  that  '  the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every 
State  in  this  Union  a  republican  form  of  government,  and 
shall  protect  each  of  them  against  invasion,  and  on  applica- 
tion of  the  legislature,  or  the  executive  (when  the  legisla- 
ture cannot  be  convened),  against  domestic  violence.' 

"And  it  is  suggested  as  not  improper  that,  in  construct- 
ing a  loyal  State  government  in  any  State,  the  name  of  the 
State,  the  boundary,  the  sub-divisions,  the  constitution  and 
the  general  code  of  laws,  as  before  the  rebellion,  be  main- 
tained, subject  only  to  the  modifications  made  necessary  by 
the  conditions  hereinbefore  stated,  and  such  others,  if 
any,  not  contravening  said  conditions,  and  which  may  be 
deemed  expedient  by  those  framing  the  new  State  g6vern- 
ment." 

Mr.  Lincoln  hereby  plainly  contemplated  that  the  people 
of  the  South  should  be  left  to  the  exercise  of  the  utmost 
freedom  in  complying  with  the  conditions  imposed  for 
their  restoration.  True  it  is  that  in  the  first  three  States 
Mr.  Lincoln  placed  the  supervision  of  the  work  under  the 
generals  commanding  the  departments,  and  in  Tennessee 
under  the  military  governor  of  the  State.  A  very  import- 
ant fact,  however,  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  connection. 
All  the  States  above  named  were  restored,  so  to  speak, 
under  Mr.  Lincoln,  prior  to  the  close  of  the  war,  before 
Lee1  s  surrender,  and  in  the  midst  of  existing  and  open  hostili- 
ties in  the  identical  territory  undergoing  the  process  of  recon- 
struction. In  this  condition  of  things  Mr.  Lincoln  could 


22O  THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

do  no  other  way,  with  any  show  of  reason  whatever,  but 
entrust  the  supervision  of  the  work  to  either  the  military 
officials  in  command  or  a  military  governor  who  for  nearly 
three  years  had  been  at  the  head  of  the  State  government. 
With  the  war  virtually  closed,  and  the  Southern  people  no 
longer  in  arms  against  the  Government,  whether  Mr.  Lin- 
coln would  have  pursued  the  reconstruction  of  the  South 
through  the  immediate  supervision  of  military  or  civil 
agencies  no  one  can  affirm.  The  tenor  of  his  proclama- 
tions of  December  8,  1863,  and  of  July  8,  1864,  by  the 
latter  of  which  he  explained  his  refusal  to  sign  the  recon- 
struction act  of  Congress  passed  at  the  last  session  thereof, 
foreshadows  a  policy  of  leaving  reconstruction  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  the  Southern  people,  accompanied  by  abundant 
and  adequate  protection  for  all  citizens  in  the  exercise  of  their 
political  rights.  This  last  he  would  have  undoubtedly  com- 
pelled at  whatever  cost,  but  that  he  would  have  initiated 
or  pursued,  after  the  cessation  of  hostilities,  a  plan  of  re- 
construction under  the  guidance  of  military  authority,  as 
desired  and  finally  compelled  by  Congress,  except  so  far  as 
would  have  been  necessary  to  protect  all  classes  in  the  exer- 
cise of  the  elective  franchise,  is  a  claim  which  finds  no 
warrant  in  his  official  acts  in  this  connection.  In  his  pro- 
clamation of  July  8,  1864,  in  explaining  his  reasons  for 
withholding  his  signature  to  the  measure  of  Congress  before 
cited,  he  expressly  states  that  he  was  unwilling  to  commit 
himself  inflexibly  to  the  Congressional  measure,  but  yet,  as 
"one  very  proper  plan,"  he  would  heartily  co-operate  with 
any  Southern  State  that  might  choose  to  adopt  it.  The 
proclamation  last  alluded  to  is  an  instance  of  the  most  wise 
and  temperate  deliberation  that  has  ever  characterized  a 
state  paper  of  our  Government,  and  was  invulnerable  to 
the  bitter  personal  attack  which  it  afterward  called  forth 
from  the  leaders  of  the  Congressional  measure.  The  re- 
construction war,  so  bitterly  waged  between  the  legislative 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         221 

and  executive  branches  of  our  Government  after  the  induc- 
tion to  office  of  President  Johnson,  was  opened,  indeed, 
prior  to  the  lamented  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  in  a  man- 
ner inconsiderate,  if  not  extremely  unwise.  A  quasi  circular 
letter  was  published  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  August  5, 
1864,  by  B.  F.  Wade  and  Henry  Winter  Davis,  the  leaders 
of  the  Congressional  measure,  wherein  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
attacked  with  much  of  the  undignified  bearing  which  cha- 
racterized the  subsequent  reconstruction  conflict.  The  let- 
ter flatly  accused  him  of  military  usurpation  in  Louisiana 
(a  policy  he  was  strenuously  striving  to  avoid)  and  of  the 
most  notorious  violation  of  the  constitutional  powers  of 
Congress  ever  instanced  by  any  prior  executive.  The 
violence  of  the  assault  destroyed  its  moral  force.  It  is, 
however,  in  all  probability,  a  tenable  position  to  assume 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  died  when  he  had  reached  the  very 
pinnacle  of  his  popularity  at  least,  if  not  the  utmost  limit 
of  his  usefulness.  The  people  would  have  doubtless  sus- 
tained him  in  acts  which  in  any  other  executive  would 
have  been  stamped  as  almost  unwarrantable,  but  it  would 
have  been  hardly  possible  for  him  to  emerge  from  the 
"impending  conflict"  with  his  reputation  unscathed  and 
his  power  for  good  uninjured. 

When  President  Johnson  inaugurated  his  policy  of  re- 
construction rebellion  was  crushed,  hostilities  had  for  the 
most  part  ceased,  and  the  Southern  people  had  in  most  in- 
stances laid  down  their  arms.  His  line  of  action  in  this 
direction  has  been  already  defined,  and,  as  already  stated, 
differed  from  his  predecessor's  only  in  the  manner  of  its 
execution.  Mr.  Johnson  placed  the  remaining  work  of  re- 
construction in  the  charge  of  resident  civilians — provisional 
governors  appointed  expressly  for  that  purpose.  It  was  a 
policy,  moreover,  which  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  in  all 
probability  adopted  had  he  lived,  but  which,  unlike  his 
successor,  he  would  have  manfully  swerved  from  had  it 


222         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

proved  deficient.  This  was  Mr.  Johnson's  fault.  He 
failed  to  fully  protect  the  people  in  the  exercise  of  their 
legal  rights,  and  stubbornly  refused  to  cure  the  defects  of 
his  system  when  laid  open  to  his  inspection.  His  policy 
of  reconstruction,  like  Mr.  Lincoln's,  was,  in  the  abstract, 
pre-eminently  sound,  wholesome  and  legitimate. 

Concurrently  with  every  cessation  of  hostilities  civil  gov- 
ernment should  supersede  military  rule.  If  such  civil  gov- 
ernment is  unable  to  sustain  itself,  then  the  military  arm 
may  be  rightly  invoked  to  preserve  its  existence.  Such 
civil  government,  moreover,  should  be  formed  from,  and  es- 
tablished by,  the  people  within  the  territory  lately  in  insur- 
rection, with  all  needed  protection,  of  course,  to  every  class 
therein,  and  the  imposition  of  as  stringent  conditions  as  the 
conqueror  may  see  fit  to  prescribe. 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  the  reconstruction  error  of 
Congress  is  apparent.  It  should  have  provided  a  policy  of 
reconstruction  upon  a  civil  basis  immediately  after  the  ces- 
sation of  hostilities,  thereby  removing  much  of  the  bitter- 
ness of  feeling  from  the  Southern  mind,  and  supplemented 
it  with  whatever  protection,  armed  or  otherwise,  the  insu- 
rance of  its  life  and  the  civil  and  political  rights  of  all 
classes  might  afterward  demand.  This  would  have  allayed 
Southern  discontent,  avoided  legislative  and  executive  col- 
lision, placed  reconstruction  upon  a  legal  foundation,  and 
rendered  unnecessary  the  voluminous  legislation  of  Con- 
gress afterward  resorted  to. 

THE  FOURTEENTH  AMENDMENT. 

Powers  and  privileges  are  peculiar  elements  of  political 
organism.  In  monarchical  governments  the  road  to  either 
is  long,  steep  and  difficult  of  ascent,  but,  the  meridian  once 
passed,  the  descending  journey  is  very  short  and  easy  of 
transit.  As  an  English  writer  and  jurist  has  tersely  put  the 
corollary  truth  last  above  named:  "Between  the  prisons 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         22$ 

and  graves  of  princes  the  distance  is  very  small."  Not  so, 
entirely,  with  democratic  or  republican  institutions.  The 
summit  of  political  position  once  reached,  the  decline  is 
here  no  less  rapid,  nor  the  period  of  its  limitation  farther 
removed.  The  element  of  decay  under  all  conditions  and 
circumstances  is  subject  to  very  similar  and  kindred  influ- 
ences. As  falling  bodies,  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  ever 
gather  fresh  impetus  with  each  bodily  measurement  of  space 
in  their  downward  course,  so  is  material,  moral  or  physical 
dissolution  equally  accelerated  with  every  remove  from  an 
incipient  decline.  It  is  the  universal  and  inevitable  law  of 
death.  The  lapse  of  political  power  and  privilege  is  in  all 
cases,  consequently,  equally  swift,  but  when  we  come  to 
consider  its  growth  the  conditions  thereof  are  by  no  means 
the  same.  While  it  is  purely  exotic  in  monarchical,  it  is 
emphatically  indigenous  to  democratic  or  republican,  coun- 
tries. The  mobility  of  the  latter  is  advantageous  for  its  ad- 
vancement, and  often  affords  it  a  premature  maturity.  This 
easy  growth  of  political  status  in  some  respects  is  one  of  the 
greatest  drawbacks  to  the  real  prosperity  of  free  institutions, 
and  does  much  to  place  them  in  a  prejudicial  light  when 
compared  with  stronger  forms  of  government. 

The  Fourteenth  amendment,  viewing  it  in  a  non-partisan 
sense,  whereby  four  millions  of  ignorant  blacks  were  un- 
qualifiedly, and  without  any  discrimination  as  to  intellectual 
fitness,  put  upon  the  high  road  to  suffragan  power,  is  one 
of  the  most  forcible  illustrations  of  the  unhealthy  growth 
of  political  privilege  which  the  annals  of  this  country  af- 
ford. It  was  by  no  means  the  first  one.  In  many  instances 
through  the  North  equally  ignorant  native  and  prematurely 
naturalized  whites  had  been  endowed  with  the  same  high 
prerogative,  but  the  period  of  the  proposal  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment  was  peculiarly  available  for  placing  the 
elective  franchise  throughout  the  entire  country  upon  a  uni- 
form, sensible  and  durable  basis.  This  thought  will  be  pur- 


224         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

sued  more  at  length  at  the  close  of  this  chapter ;  at  present 
indorsement  will  be  merely  given  to  one  of  the  wisest  ex- 
pressions that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
and  that  unwittingly  of  its  just  import,  when  in  the  House 
debate  advocating  the  amendment  he  said,  "Forty  acres 
of  land  and  a  hut  would  be  more  valuable  to  the  negro  than 
the  immediate  right  to  vote." 

The  amendment  had  its  origin,  morally  speaking,  in  the 
wise,  commendable,  Christian  and  thereby  imperative  mo- 
tive of  advancing  the  condition  of,  and  doing  justice  to,  a 
resident  native  race  which  had  long  been  cruelly  and  inhu- 
manly enslaved.  Politically  speaking,  it  had  its  origin  in 
the  desire  of  its  official  movers  to  control  the  future,  or  at 
least  the  immediate  future,  representation  in  Congress  from 
the  South — a  desire,  under  the  then  existing  circumstances, 
by  no  means  unreasonable  or  improper.  These  were  the 
ends  in  view.  They  might  and  should  have  been  secured 
by  more  utilitarian  means,  but  so  far  as  the  last-named  pur- 
pose is  concerned,  the  amendment,  although  crude  in  some 
respects,  is  a  piece  of  very  ingenious  legislation. 

Prior  to  the  rebellion  the  Southern  representation  in 
Congress  was  based  upon  the  whole  number  of  whites,  and 
three-fifths  of  the  slave  population  in  addition.  The  the- 
ory of  the  slave-basis  was  that  slaves  were  a  species  of  prop- 
erty subject  to  taxation.  They  were  a  kind  of  property, 
moreover,  subject  to  a  direct  tax  (which  last  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  the  chapter  upon  that  subject),  and  consequently 
all  levies  thereon  had  to  be  laid  in  accordance  with  the 
provision  of  the  Constitution  which  requires  that  direct 
taxes  shall  be  apportioned  upon  the  basis  of  the  represent- 
ative population.  The  abolition  of  slavery,  destroying  in 
its  consequent  effect  the  property  in  slaves,  and  thereby 
relieving  their  former  owners  of  the  tax  formerly  imposed 
upon  them  in  this  direction,  put  an  end,  of  course,  to  the 
three-fifths  principle  of  representation  in  Congress. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.          22$ 

For  the  philanthropic  and  politic  purposes  before  men- 
tioned the  immediate  enfranchisement  of  the  blacks  was 
resorted  to,  though  not  in  a  direct  and  affirmative  form. 
Public  sentiment,  at  the  North  even,  at  the  time  of  the 
proposal  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  for  ratification, 
would  not  have  countenanced  the  immediate  bestowal  of 
an  unqualified  and  unrestricted  right  of  suffrage  upon  our 
former  slave  population.  The  amendment  (which  see  in 
the  Appendix)  was,  so  to  speak,  a  provision  of  suffrage  for 
the  blacks  in  a  negative  form.  Its  provisions  are  mostly 
punitive,  and  are,  in  the  main,  as  follows  : 

First.  All  native  and  naturalized  persons  are  declared 
citizens;  their  privileges  shall  not  be  abridged  by  State 
laws,  nor  shall  any  such  statutes  deprive  any  such  persons 
of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of  law ;  nor 
shall  any  such  persons  be  denied  the  equal  protection  of  such 
State  ordinances.* 

Second.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  in  the 
States  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  excluding  In- 
dians not  taxed.  If  any  such  person,  twenty-one  years  of 
age,  shall  be  denied  by  any  State  the  right  to  vote  at  any 
United  States  or  State  election,  except  for  crime,  the  basis 
of  representation  therein  shall  be  proportionately  reduced. 

Third.  Imposes  political  disabilities  upon  certain  classes 
of  the  South,  with  power  of  removal  thereof  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  of  Congress. 

Fourth.  Declares  the  validity  of  the  public  debt,  denies 
that  of  the  Confederate  one,  forbidding  the  assumption  of 
the  latter  by  any  State  or  the  United  States,  as  also  com- 
pensation for  the  loss  of  property  in  slaves. 

We  have  thus  briefly  stated  the  cause,  origin  and  purposes 
of  the  amendment.  Reasserting  the  latter,  the  grand  ends 
which  the  measure  sought  to  accomplish  were  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Diacks  by  their  initiatory  enfranchisement,  and 
the  consequent  control  by  its  movers  of  the  immediate 

K  2 


226         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Southern  representation  in  Congress.  The  minor  points 
are  contained  in  the  last  two  preceding  paragraphs.  The 
discussion  will  now  be  conducted  in  the  following  order — • 
namely :  The  history  and  legality  of  the  Congressional  vote 
proposing  the  amendment  and  its  ratification  by  the  States  ; 
its  constitutionality,  resulting  effect  upon  community,  and 
a  criticism  of  its  merits.  Much  of  this  ground  has  been 
already  traversed  in  our  examination  of  the  Thirteenth 
amendment,  whereby  considerable  detail  will  be  obviated 
in  this  connection. 

When  Congress  assembled  in  December,  1865,  there  was 
no  inconsiderable  feeling  of  dissatisfaction,  North  as  well 
as  South,  in  reference  to  the  unsettled  condition  of  the 
country.  The  Thirteenth  amendment  was  promulgated  a 
few  days  after  the  opening  of  Congress  (December  18), 
and  although  the  legislatures  of  eight  insurrectionary  States 
had  aided  in  the  ratification  thereof,  four  of  which  had 
been  restored  under  President  Lincoln  and  four  under 
President  Johnson,  none  of  them  had  been  admitted  to 
their  representation  in  Congress.  The  business  community 
was  peevish  and  restless  over  the  delay  in  reconstruction, 
trade  was  stagnant,  and  all  commercial  and  manufacturing 
pursuits,  in  fact,  were  anxiously  and  impatiently  waiting  for 
a  permanent  readjustment  of  political,  social  and  mercantile 
relations.  It  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  grave  inconsistency  to 
accept  the  acts  of  a  people  through  their  legislatures  as  valid 
for  the  purpose  of  legalizing  an  amendment  to  the  national 
Constitution,  and  then  deny  the  legality  of  their  action  in 
returning  a  representation  to  Congress.  That  certain  classes 
were  not  allowed  a  free  exercise  of  their  political  rights  in 
this  last  proceeding  at  the  South,  it  is  true.  Neither  were 
they  in  the  first;  and  while  no  intention  is  here  made  to 
censure  the  refusal  of  admission  of  this  Southern  representa- 
tion to  Congress,  neither  can  the  plea  of  silence  be  given 
to  excuse  the  inconsistency  of  accepting  the  action  of  South- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         22/ 

ern  legislatures  formed  and  organized  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances, simply  because  such  action  chanced  to  be  sat- 
isfactory. 

During  the  recess  prior  to  the  session  of  Congress  just  re- 
ferred to  (December,  1865)  the  political  opinion  of  our 
national  legislators  had  resolved  itself  into  the  necessity  of 
a  measure  whereby  the  blacks  should  share  in  the  Southern 
elections  as  a  sine  qua  non,  a  condition  precedent  for  the 
return  of  a  delegation  to  Congress  which  should  be  allowed 
admission  thereto.  Owing  to  the  growing  discontent 
among  the  people,  the  necessity  for  determinate,  was  no 
greater  than  that  for  immediate,  action  which  should  lead 
to  a  final  solution  of  the  reconstruction  problem.  Numer- 
ous resolutions  embodying  the  gist  of  the  measure  above 
noticed  were  consequently  pressed  upon  the  attention  of 
Congress  at  the  commencement  of  the  session,  with  a  view 
of  having  them  submitted  to  the  legislatures  of  the  several 
States  for  ratification  as  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
The  debates  upon  these  resolutions,  in  both  Senate  and 
House,  were  desultory  as  usual,  until  finally,  the  whole 
matter  having  been  referred  to  a  joint  select  committee,  the 
first  draft  of  the  present  amendment  was  reported  to  the 
House  by  Thaddeus  Stevens,  April  30,  1866.  It  was  called 
up  for  consideration  May  10  following,  and,  on  a  demand  for 
the  previous  question  by  Mr.  Stevens,  was  adopted.  The 
same  was  amended  in  the  Senate  and  passed  June  8th,  the 
amendment  of  that  body  concurred  in  by  the  House  the 
1 3th  of  the  same  month,  and  the  amendment  as  it  now 
stands  deposited  in  the  State  Department  June  16.  On  the 
zoth  of  the  same  month  a  certified  copy  thereof  was  forwarded 
by  the  Department  to  the  governors  of  the  several  States. 

A  similar  debate  occurred  as  to  the  legality  of  the  vote 
upon  the  resolution  in  Congress  as  that  already  referred  to 
in  our  examination  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment.  As  the 
points  raised  were  precisely  the  same,  our  discussion  in  the 


228         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

prior  connection  upon  this  matter  is  equally  applicable 
here,  and  need  not  be  repeated. 

At  this  juncture  the  war-cloud  of  reconstruction,  which 
had  been  so  long  gathering  between  Congress  and  the  ex- 
ecutive, manifested  itself  in  open  hostility,  and  not  till 
June  20,  after  a  resolution  passed  for  that  purpose  by  both 
Houses,  did  the  President  submit  the  amendment,  and  then 
under  a  message  to  Congress  of  his  disapproval  thereof. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  legality  of  the  ratifica- 
tion of  this  amendment  by  the  legislatures  of  the  several 
States,  it  is  necessary,  for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  sub- 
ject, to  trace  the  progress  of  reconstruction  from  the  time 
of  the  submission  of  the  same  to  its  final  promulgation.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  when  President  Johnson  assumed 
the  duties  of  chief  executive  in  April,  1865,  four  of  the  in- 
surrectionary States  had  been  restored,  so  to  speak,  under 
the  policy  of  his  predecessor.  At  the  time  of  the  submis- 
sion of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  for  ratification  the  re- 
maining seven  insurrectionary  States  had  all  been  recon- 
structed under  President  Johnson,  but  none  of  the  whole 
number  (eleven)  had  been  admitted  to  a  representation  in 
Congress.  As  the  whole  number  of  States  was  thirty-seven, 
twenty-six  loyal  and  eleven  insurrectionary,  thus  requiring 
the  assent  of  twenty-eight  to  legalize  the  amendment,  and 
the  assent,  moreover,  of  two  of  the  insurrectionary  number, 
the  same  anomalous  condition  of  things  hereinbefore  al- 
luded to  still  existed — namely :  Congress  was  denying 
certain  States  a  representation  therein,  and  yet  depending 
upon  the  action  of  their  legislatures  to  stamp  the  Fourteenth 
amendment  as  a  legal  and  integral  portion  of  our  Consti- 
tution. 

The  amendment,  as  before  stated,  was  submitted  for 
ratification  June  20,  1866.  The  legislature  of  Tennessee 
ratified  the  same  on  the  igth  of  the  following  month,  where- 
upon Congress,  which  had  not  adjourned  since  the  passage 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         22g 

of  the  resolution  proposing  the  amendment  and  the  sub- 
mission of  the  same,  by  a  special  act  declared  this  State 
fully  restored  and  entitled  to  her  representation  in  that 
body. 

Shortly  after  this  date  Congress  adjourned  sine  die.  When 
it  assembled  again  in  December  (1866)  the  prospects  for 
the  ratification  of  the  amendment  were  by  no  means  en- 
couraging. Several  Southern  State  legislatures  had  rejected 
it,  and  at  the  close  of  January,  1867,  the  following  State 
legislatures  had  pronounced  against  it — namely :  Texas, 
Georgia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky and  Delaware.  As  the  legislatures  of  the  remaining 
insurrectionary  States,  together  with  the  loyal  ones  of  Mary- 
land, New  Jersey,  and  possibly  one  or  two  others,  were 
looked  upon  as  sure  to  declare  themselves  of  the  same 
opinion,  the  ratification  of  the  amendment  under  the  then 
existing  circumstances  was  of  course  impossible. 

In  view  of  this  condition  of  things,  Congress  resorted 
to  the  decisive  measure  of  March  2,  1867,  the  principal 
features  of  which  are  as  follows  :  It  declared  the  non-exist- 
ence of  a  legal  government  in  all  of  the  lately  insur- 
rectionary States  except  Tennessee,  consigned  them  to 
military  rule  for  the  purpose  of  reorganization,  directed 
the  character  of  the  government  which  should  be  organized 
therein  and  the  constitutions  thereof — the  latter  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  Congress  for  approval — and  made  the  ratification 
of  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  among  other  things,  an  abso- 
lute condition  for  their  restoration  to  a  civil  basis  and  the 
recognition  of  their  representation  in  Congress.  This  act 
was  amended  by  subsequent  ones  under  date  of  March  23 
and  July  19,  1867,  and  March  n,  1868.  These  last,  how- 
ever, were  mere  enforcement  measures  of  the  scheme  of  the 
original  act,  and  do  not  require  particular  notice.  They 
did  not  change  the  substance  of  the  original  plan.  In  our 
allusion  to  these  various  reconstruction  measures  throughout 
20 


230         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  present  chapter  as  little  comment  thereon  has  been  and 
will  be  made  as  possible,  the  same  being  reserved  for  the 
chapter  solely  devoted  to  that  subject. 

By  this  plan  of  reconstruction,  Congress,  among  other 
things,  compelled  the  establishment  of  a  doctrine,  at  the 
hands  of  the  insurrectionary  States,  which  it  hoped  would 
have  been  granted  by  their  own  volition — the  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  blacks.  It  merely  declared,  in  this  respect, 
in  an  express  form,  what  it  impliedly  decreed  when  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  was  submitted — namely  :  that  its 
sanction  by  the  insurrectionary  States  must  unlock  the  door 
for  their  representation  in  Congress.  All  of  the  recon- 
struction acts  referred  to  in  the  last  preceding  paragraph, 
moreover,  became  laws  without  the  approval  of  the  execu- 
tive by  means  of  the  usual  two-thirds  vote. 

The  process  of  ratification  of  this  amendment,  both 
North  and  South,  was  much  more  tardy  than  that  of  the 
one  which  preceded  it.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
assent  of  twenty-eight  States  was  required  to  give  it  validity 
as  a  part  of  our  Constitution.  On  the  2oth  of  June,  1868, 
Secretary  Seward  certified  the  amendment  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  Constitution,  provided  the  ratification  thereof 
by  the  legislatures  of  the  States  of  Ohio  and  New  Jersey 
was  not  annulled  by  their  alleged  subsequent  withdrawal 
of  the  same.  As  the  whole  number  having  assented  at  this 
period,  counting  Ohio  and  New  Jersey,  was  twenty-nine, 
one  more  than  necessary,  all  doubt  would  be  removed  as  to 
the  completeness  of  the  ratification,  so  far  as  number  was 
concerned,  by  the  accession  of  a  single  State  to  the  list. 
That  is,  thirty  States  would  have  then  given  in  their  adhe- 
sion to  the  amendment,  two  more  than  requisite,  which 
would  have  rendered  it  unnecessary  to  include  Ohio  and 
New  Jersey  in  the  list.  The  following  week  after  the  certi- 
ficate of  Mr.  Seward  above  mentioned  was  promulgated, 
Georgia  proclaimed  her  approval,  and  thus  the  numerical 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2$l 

doubt  was  removed.  Congress,  in  the  mean  time,  the  day 
next  succeeding  the  certificate  of  Mr.  Seward,  had  passed 
the  following  joint  resolution  for  the  purpose  of  removing 
the  doubts  expressed  and  intimated  by  that  official :  "  Re- 
solved, by  the  Senate  (the  House  of  Representatives  con- 
curring), That  said  Fourteenth  Article  is  hereby  declared  to 
be  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  it 
shall  be  duly  promulgated  as  such  by  the  Secretary  of 
State."  This  action  on  the  part  of  Congress,  for  reasons 
stated  when  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  Article  en- 
gaged attention,  was  an  exceedingly  proper  course  to  pur- 
sue, and  should  be  adopted  in  connection  with  the  Thir- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  amendments. 

By  force  of  this  resolution,  together  with  that  of  the 
subsequent  action  of  Georgia,  Secretary  Seward,  July  28, 
1868,  issued  a  second  certificate,  declaring  the  amendment 
absolutely  and  unqualifiedly  an  integral  part  of  the  national 
Constitution. 

The  legislatures  of  the  States  of  Ohio  and  New  Jersey 
having  alleged  their  withdrawal  from  the  ratification  of 
the  amendment,  an  examination  of  the  legality  of  such 
action  demands  an  incidental  place  in  this  discussion.  It 
will  receive  it,  but  as  the  same  question  arises  in  the  case 
of  the  Fifteenth  amendment,  such  examination  will  be 
postponed  until  a  consideration  of  the  latter  measure  shall 
be  assumed.  Attention  is  now  directed  more  particularly 
to  the  validity  of  the  ratification  as  already  announced. 

The  only  question  which  arises  in  this  connection  is  the 
legality  of  the  political  status  of  the  insurrectionary  States 
whose  legislatures  aided,  in  pursuance  of  the  reconstruction 
act  of  March  2,  1867,  in  legalizing  the  amendment.  These 
States,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  once  reconstructed 
under  the  measures  of  Presidents  Lincoln  and  Johnson, 
the  legislatures  of  a  portion  of  them  had  helped  to  incor- 
porate the  Thirteenth  amendment  into  our  Constitution, 


232         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

and  yet  the  above-mentioned  act  declared  their  govern- 
ments all  illegal,  with  the  exception  of  Tennessee,  con- 
signed them  again  to  military  rule,  and  ordered  an  entire 
reconstruction  of  their  political  organization.  This  decla- 
ration by  Congress  of  the  illegality  of  these  State  govern- 
ments did  not,  of  course,  act  retrospectively  and  overreach 
the  dates  whereat  the  legislatures  thereof  had  ratified  the 
Thirteenth  amendment,  and  thus  render  their  action  in  this 
respect  invalid.  These  governments,  in  contemplation  of 
law,  in  the  absence  of  any  retrospective  clause,  were  not 
illegal  until  the  act  above  named  became  a  law  of  the  land 
by  virtue  of  the  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress  which  passed 
it  over  the  President's  veto.  Taking  all  the  facts  into  con- 
sideration as  stated  in  this  paragraph,  however,  and  the 
question  as  to  the  exact  time  when,  in  point  of  fact  as  con- 
tradistinguished from  law,  the  aforesaid  governments,  in 
the  opinion  of  Congress,  became  tainted  with  illegality,  is 
one  not  very  easy  of  solution. 

The  main  inquiry,  however,  as  to  the  legality  of  the  ratifi- 
cation of  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  as  dependent  upon  the 
legal  status  of  the  reorganized  insurrectionary  States  whose 
legislatures  aided  in  such  ratification,  in  the  light  of  our  dis- 
cussion upon  the  preceding  article  of  the  Constitution  is  appre- 
ciable of  proximate  solution  by  mere  statement  of  principles 
hereinbefore  established.  We  have  seen,  in  the  connection 
above  referred  to,  that  the  General  Government  derived 
its  power  to  reconstruct  the  Southern  States  by  virtue  of  its 
constitutional  prerogative  to  enforce  its  legislation,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  within  State  limits.  This  power  of  reconstruc- 
tion, moreover,  was  seen  to  be  measured  by  that  clause  of 
the  Constitution  which  declares  that  the  United  States  shall 
guarantee  to  every  State  a  republican  form  of  government. 
As  to  what  constitutes  a  republican  form  of  government,  it 
was  also  shown  that  Congress  and  the  executive  form  the 
proper  and  sole  tribunal.  The  proposition  was  also  main- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         233 

tained  that  such  a  reconstruction  of  the  Southern  States  as 
met  the  approval  of  Congress  and  the  executive  gave  to 
such  States  a  government  republican  in  form,  and  so  put 
them  in  a  legal  position  to  ratify  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment. These  respective  propositions  were  laid  down  and 
maintained  without  any  qualification  whatever. 

In  the  light  of  these  principles,  then,  without  any  quali- 
fication, the  legality  of  the  ratification  of  the  amendment, 
as  dependent  upon  the  legal  status  of  the  Southern  States 
whose  legislatures  aided  therein,  can  in  no  way  be  asserted. 
Let  us  look  at  the  facts.  Ten  insurrectionary  States  which 
had  been  once  reconstructed  under  executive  supervision, 
the  legislatures  of  seven  of  which  had  aided  in  legalizing  a 
change  in  our  organic  law,  were  declared  to  be  existing 
under  governments  non-republican  in  form  by  a  measure 
of  Congress  passed  over  the  President's  veto.  In  pursu- 
ance of  this  measure,  moreover,  all  of  these  insurrection- 
ary States  whose  legislatures  finally  aided  in  ratifying  the 
amendment — namely,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  South  Car- 
olina, Arkansas,  Florida,  Louisiana  and  Alabama — were 
declared  to  be  reorganized  under  republican  forms  of  gov- 
ernment by  another  measure  of  Congress  adopted  over  the 
disapproval  of  the  executive.  In  other  words,  the  gov- 
ernments of  these  States  were  adjudged  non-republican,  and 
subsequently  republican  in  form,  by  the  sole  tribunal  of 
Congress.  That  the  question  as  to  what  constitutes  a  re- 
publican form  of  government  in  the  several  States  is  a  po- 
litical one,  and  legally  comes  before  the  joint  tribunal  of 
Congress  and  the  executive,  and  that  both  of  these  proposi- 
tions have  been  so  declared  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  was  shown  in  our  discussion  of  the  legality 
of  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  and  reite- 
rated, in  brief,  in  the  next  preceding  paragraph.  Reason- 
ing from  these  established  principles,  moreover,  the  propo- 
sition was  maintained  in  the  prior  connection  above  referred 

J0» 


234         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to.  and  briefly  reasserted  in  the  paragraph  next  preceding, 
that  such  a  reconstruction  of  the  Southern  States  as  met  the 
approval  of  both  Congress  and  the  executive  was  a  legal 
reconstruction — was  a  valid  organization  of  a  republican 
form  of  government  therein — upon  which  basis  the  said 
States  could  legitimately  aid  in  changing  our  organic  law. 
In  the  present  case,  however,  these  principles  are  both  ap- 
parently subverted.  The  States  aiding  in  the  ratification 
of  the  amendment  in  pursuance  of  the  reconstruction  act  of 
March  2,  1867,  were  adjudged  non-republican  in  form,  de- 
nied representation  in  Congress,  and  again  readjudged  of 
a  republican  stamp  and  admitted  to  such  representation,  by 
a  sole  Congressional — and  not  a  joint  Congressional  and 
executive — tribunal,  as  all  our  constitutional  precedents 
appear  to  require. 

At  the  present  stage  of  this  discussion  the  legality  of  the 
ratification  of  the  amendment  cannot  be  affirmed,  and  such 
legality,  indeed,  finds  warrant,  if  at  all,  by  force  of  a  sin- 
gle principle  of  constitutional  law.  A  little  repetition  of 
what  has  been  before  remarked  will  assist  the  present  inves- 
tigation. The  General  Government  derives  its  right  to 
reconstruct  insurrectionary  States  by  force  of  the  constitu- 
tional power  conferred  thereon  to  exercise  its  authority 
within  State  limits.  This  authority,  for  the  purposes  of 
reconstruction,  is  measured  by  the  constitutional  provision 
that  "the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in 
the  Union  a  republican  form  of  government."  The  legit- 
imate tribunal  to  declare  what  State  government  is  republi- 
can inform  is  composed  of  Congress  and  the  executive. 
Of  all  this  there  is  no  dispute.  The  last  two  propositions, 
though  so  intimately  associated  as  to  almost  overreach  each 
other,  are  somewhat  different  in  character.  The  first  con- 
stitutes an  administrative,  the  second  a  discretionary,  judi- 
cial power.  The  latter  decides,  the  former  acts.  Let  us 
here  remember  that  the  office  of  the  executive  is  to  enforce 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        235 

the  laws  of  Congress  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the 
Constitution,  and  that  the  duty  of  Congress  is  legislation. 
Let  the  constitutional  words  of  the  administrative  power 
above  cited  in  quotation-marks  be  now  referred  to.  Keep- 
ing these  in  mind,  can  the  President,  as  a  sworn  supporter 
of  the  Constitution,  exercise  this  power  alone?  In  cases 
of  extended  or  uncontrollable  insurrection,  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  un- 
doubtedly. But  how  does  the  matter  stand  in  respect  to 
Congress  ?  Can  //  represent  the  United  States  for  this 
guarantee  to  the  States  of  a  republican  government?  Now, 
Congress  can  alone  enact  laws,  and  the  latter,  moreover, 
the  executive  is  bound  by  his  constitutional  oath  to  enforce. 
The  requisites  of  a  law  of  the  United  States  are  either  a 
measure  of  Congress  approved  by  the  President  or  one 
passed  over  his  veto  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  that  body. 
Such  a  law,  created  in  either  of  these  forms,  the  executive 
must  execute.  The  reconstruction  act  of  March,  1867, 
whereunder  the  insurrectionary  States  ratified  the  Four- 
teenth amendment,  became  a  law  in  the  manner  last  above 
named,  and  President  Johnson  put  the  same  in  execution. 

Turn,  for  a  moment,  from  this  administrative  to  the  ju- 
dicial power  before  referred  to — namely,  the  adjudgment 
by  the  joint  tribunal  of  Congress  and  the  executive  of  what 
constitutes  a  republican  form  of  government.  Can  the 
President  exercise  this  power  alone?  Clearly  not.  In  no 
phase  is  it  solely  an  executive  or  military  act,  of  which  pre- 
rogatives he  is  alone  possessed.  Can  Congress?  This 
body,  as  before  seen,  can  make  a  law  of  the  land  in  spite 
of  the  executive,  and  the  latter  must  enforce  it.  The  all- 
important  question  here  arises,  Can  a  law  of  the  land  ad- 
judge a  certain  form  of  government  republican,  although 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  held  that  the 
tribunal  for  that  purpose  is  Congress  and  the  executive? 
Probably  yes.  The  Supreme  Court,  in  the  above  opinion, 


236         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

merely  decides  that  the  question  therein  involved  is  purely 
a  political  and  not  a  judicial  one.  It  moreover  defines  the 
court  which  has  legal  jurisdiction  of  this  political  question. 
The  court,  moreover,  wherein  the  jurisdiction  of  this  po- 
litical question  is  vested  by  the  ruling  of  the  Supreme  Court 
is  a  political  tribunal.  How  does  this  political  tribunal 
act  ?  The  Constitution  has  decided — namely,  by  measures 
of  Congress  assuming  the  form  of  law,  either  with  the 
President's  approval  or  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  that  body 
against  his  disapproval,  which  in  both  cases  are  put  in  exe- 
cution by  the  executive  arm. 

We  are  thus  led  to  the  following  proposition — namely, 
that  the  guarantee  by  the  United  States  to  the  States  of  re- 
publican forms  of  government,  and  the  adjudgment  of  the 
question  as  to  what  constitutes  such  a  government — that  a 
legal  reconstruction  of  insurrectionary  States  for  the  pur- 
poses of  ratifying  an  amendment  to  our  Constitution,  ex- 
cepting the  exercise  of  the  war-prerogative  of  the  President 
as  to  the  active  power  above  named — merely  intends  the  en- 
forcement of  legalized  legislation.  Upon  no  other  ground 
rests  the  validity  of  the  ratification  of  the  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment. That  end  was  only  obtained  by  the  enforcement  of 
such  legalized  legislation — namely,  the  reconstruction  act 
of  Congress  of  March  2,  1867,  and  the  acts  amendatory 
thereof,  which  became  laws  over  the  President's  vetoes, 
and  were  by  "him  executed,  and  the  subsequent  acts  of 
Congress  which  readmitted  the  insurrectionary  States  named 
in  this  discussion  to  their  representation  in  Congress,  which 
also  became  laws  in  the  manner  last  above  named,  and 
which  required  no  actual  execution  at  the  hands  of  the  ex- 
ecutive. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  legality  of  the  ratification  of 
the  Fourteenth  stands  upon  a  totally  different  ground  from 
that  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment.  In  the  last-named  in- 
stance the  insurrectionary  States  whose  legislatures  aided  in 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         237 

the  adoption  thereof  were  reconstructed  under  a  mere  ex- 
ecutive policy,  having  only  the  passive  approval  of  Con- 
gress, while  in  the  present  case  such  States  were  restored 
by  virtue  of  the  enforcement  of  legalized  legislation  at  the 
hands  of  the  executive  where  such  enforcement  was  necessary, 
although  such  legislation  did  not  meet  his  approval. 

The  constitutionality  of  the  amendment  itself  is  the  sub- 
ject which,  logically  speaking,  next  requires  consideration. 
The  only  important  point  here  in  issue  is,  whether  the 
right  of  suffrage  in  the  States  can  be  in  any  way  interfered 
with  by  means  of  a  constitutional  amendment.  The  Four- 
teenth amendment,  as  will  be  remembered,  assumes  such 
interference  only  in  a  negative  and  minatory  form.  The 
Fifteenth  amendment,  however,  although  also  of  a  negative 
character,  tends  directly  to  an  extension  of  the  elective 
franchise.  The  first  contemplates  a  means  of  punishment 
for  a  denial  of  the  privilege  to  certain  classes  (the  prior 
slave  population) ;  the  second  declares  that  such  classes 
shall  not  be  denied  the  same,  except  for  crime,  under  any 
circumstances  whatever.  A  full  discussion  of  the  constitu- 
tionality of  such  a  measure  pertains  more  properly  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Fifteenth  amendment,  and  it  is  there- 
fore postponed  until  that  article  of  organic  law  shall  engage 
attention. 

In  examining  the  amendment  itself,  and  tracing  the 
record  of  events  which  has  been  made  since  its  promulga- 
tion for  the  resulting  effects  of  this  change  in  our  Constitu- 
tion upon  community,  two  or  three  points  of  peculiar  interest 
challenge  our  acquaintance.  The  first  that  will  be  noticed 
is  the  claim  which  has  been  made  that  the  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  amendments  establish  the  principle  of  woman 
suffrage.  That  the  claim  is  purely  ephemeral  a  brief  ex- 
amination will  abundantly  prove.  As  the  Fifteenth  amend- 
ment has  not  been  reached  as  yet  in  this  discussion,  the 
present  examination  of  this  topic  may  seem  an  anticipation 


238         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  subject-matter  which  is  unwarranted.  The  arguments 
both  pro  and  con,  however,  spring  almost  from  the  first- 
named  article,  and  as  an  understanding  of  the  last-named 
amendment,  in  the  abstract,  is  not  an  absolute  prerequisite 
in  this  connection,  the  alleged  doctrine  may  be  here  dis- 
posed of  without  any  breach  of  logical  propriety. 

The  only  portions  of  the  two  amendments  which  refer, 
either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  question  of  suffrage  in 
the  abstract  is  the  second  section  of  the  Fourteenth  and  the 
first  section  of  the  Fifteenth  Article,  as  will  be  seen  by 
reference  thereto. 

The  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  simply  decrees 
citizenship,  forbids  the  abridgment  of  its  privileges  or  im- 
munities, reiterates  the  constitutional  warrant  as  to  depriva- 
tion of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of  law, 
and  prohibits  the  denial  to  any  person  of  the  equal  protec- 
tion of  the  laws. 

The  second  apportions  Representatives  among  the  States, 
and  provides  a  means  of  punishment  for  denying,  in  any 
State,  the  right  of  certain  male  inhabitants  to  vote  at  any 
State  or  United  States  election. 

The  Fifteenth  amendment  is  substantially  as  follows : 
"The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall 
not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States,  or  by  any 
State,  on  account  of  race,  color  or  previous  condition  of 
servitude." 

The  fundamental  rule  of  statutory  interpretation,  and 
one  which  overrides  all  others,  is  to  seek  the  intention  of 
the  legislators  who  framed  the  law.  This  intention  as  to 
the  first  article  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  is  a  matter  of 
history,  and  not  surrounded  with  doubt.  After  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  by  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  Congress 
passed  a  measure  called  the  civil  rights  bill,  for  the  purpose 
of  bestowing  citizenship  upon  the  colored  population.  The 
validity  of  this  measure  was  questioned.  The  point  was 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         239 

raised  that  the  end  sought  by  the  civil  rights  bill  was  legally 
attainable  only  by  a  constitutional  amendment,  and  the 
first  section  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  (see  Appendix)  was 
provided  merely  to  validate  the  bill  above  named.  This 
fact  appeared  not  only  in  private  political  discussions,  but 
the  debates  in  Congress  on  the  amendment  fully  show  that 
this  was  the  intention  of  that  body. 

The  section  last  above  named  in  the  outset  decrees  citi- 
zenship to  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United 
States;  and  the  primal  claim  of  the  woman -suffrage  advo- 
cates is  that  citizenship  implies  suffrage.  It  does  not,  nor 
never  has,  under  this  or  any  other  form  of  government. 
The  question  is  a  res  adjudicata  even  of  the  common  law  of 
England  and  the  United  States.  As  such,  the  elements  of 
citizenship  have  been  defined  by  Blackstone  and  other 
English,  and  Kent  and  other  American,  law-writers,  and  as 
such  it  has  been  subsequently  reiterated  and  reaffirmed  over 
and  over  again  by  English  and  American  tribunals  ;  namely, 
the  fundamental  elements  and  sole  essence  of  citizenship 
are  the  rights  of  personal  liberty,  personal  security  and  the 
right  of  property.  These  three  rights,  moreover,  are  all 
that  are  embraced  in  the  civil  rights  bill,  which  the  first 
section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  was  designed  to  sup- 
plement. This  very  section  of  this  amendment,  moreover, 
proclaims,  in  almost  so  many  words,  that  the  citizenship 
which  it  decrees  means  exactly  the  possession  of  these  three 
rights,  and  no  more ;  for  after  the  declaration  of  such  citi- 
zenship it  immediately  says — by  way  of  protecting  what  it 
has  just  decreed — by  way  of  defining  the  general  right  it 
has  just  guaranteed  :  "  Nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any  per- 
son of  life,  liberty,  or  property  "  (that  is,  citizenship)  "  with- 
out due  process  of  law."  Every  child  but  a  moment  born 
is  by  the  law  of  the  land  just  as  much  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States  as  a  man  who  has  voted  for  every  President  thereof. 
In  that  state,  and  through  his  legal  infancy,  before  the 


240         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

period  when  an  express  statute  declares  that  he  may  be  en- 
dowed with  the  distinct  right  of  suffrage,  he  is  just  as  much 
protected  by  law  in  the  rights  of  life,  liberty  and  property — 
the  rights  of  citizenship — as  at  any  time  thereafter.  Citi- 
zenship, indeed,  by  force  of  our  organic  municipal  and  ad- 
judicated code,  is  the  normal  condition  of  every  person, 
man,  woman  or  child,  and  by  reason  of  precisely  the  same 
force  it  means  the  rights  of  personal  liberty,  personal  se- 
curity and  the  right  of  property.  The  only  question  on 
this  first  claim  of  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine  that  citi- 
zenship implies  suffrage  is,  whether  the  principles  of  the 
common  law  of  England,  which  have  existed  for  five 
hundred  years,  been  adopted  into  our  jurisprudence,  reaf- 
firmed by  law-writers  and  tribunals  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  shall  give  way  to  the  opinion  of  a  class  whose 
leaders  are  a  woman  who  claims  to  be  the  mundane  abode 
of  the  spirit  of  Demosthenes,  and  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  the  basis  of  whose  political  principles 
is  his  own  individual  advancement. 

Passing  from  the  first  to  the  second  section  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment,  the  only  one  which  speaks  directly  upon 
suffrage,  an  examination  thereof  shows  its  provisions  to  be 
merely  punitive.  It  provides  a  means  of  punishment  for 
States  who  shall  deny  the  right  of  suffrage  to  a  certain  por- 
tion of  its  population.  But  if  suffrage  is  impliedly  granted 
in  the  bestowal  of  citizenship  in  the  first  section,  as  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  doctrine  claim — and  if  it  were  so  granted 
as  an  amendment  to  our  national  Constitution,  State  legisla- 
tion could  not  deny  it  to  any  class — why  have  a  second  sec- 
tion in  immediate  connection  therewith,  providing  a  means 
of  punishment  for  every  State  which  should  deny  such  right 
of  suffrage  to  a  portion  of  its  inhabitants  ?  If  suffrage  is 
granted  by  the  national  Constitution,  State  legislation  cannot 
take  it  away;  and  if  so  granted  by  the  first  section  of  the 
Fourteenth  amendment,  why  have  the  second  one,  provid- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         24! 

ing  punishment  for  the  withholding  of  a  right  by  a  State 
which  is  already  given  beyond  the  power  of  such  State  to 
either  refuse  or  withdraw  ?  Moreover,  if  the  first  section 
of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  confers  suffrage  upon  all  per- 
sons born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  by  the  be- 
stowal of  citizenship,  it  reaches  all  males  in  its  operation  as 
well  as  women.  But  the  second  section  only  provides  pun- 
ishment for  a  State  which  denies  suffrage  to  a  certain  por- 
tion of  its  "male"  population;  therefore,  according  to  the 
advocates  of  the  doctrine,  either  the  first  section  of  the 
article  enfranchises  women  alone  in  conferring  citizenship 
upon  "  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States," 
or  the  second  section,  by  providing  punishment  for  a  State 
which  denies  the  elective  franchise  to  a  portion  of  its 
"male"  population,  assumes  either  that  women  are  not  in- 
cluded in  the  operation  of  the  amendment  at  all,  or  that 
a  State  may  deny  them  the  right  of  suffrage  without  coming 
within  the  punitive  provisions  of  the  article.  In  any  way 
we  may  view  the  question,  the  second  section  of  the  Four- 
teenth Article,  according  to  the  advocates  of  women  suffrage 
under  the  Constitution,  is  not  only  unnecessary,  but  abso- 
lutely suicidal. 

Looking  now  to  the  Fifteenth  amendment,  a  moment's 
".onsideration  thereof  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  dis- 
cussion will  amply  suffice.  The  intention  of  the  legislators 
who  framed  this  article  of  our  organic  law  is  no  less  a 
matter  of  history  than  is  the  case  of  the  one  which  preceded 
it.  The  penalties  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  which 
certain  States  would  lay  themselves  liable  to  incur  by  deny- 
ing their  colored  population  the  right  of  suffrage  were  not 
sufficient  to  deter  such  States  from  the  adoption  of  such 
a  policy.  The  right  of  suffrage  was  denied  the  blacks 
throughout  the  South,  and  the  incidental  penalties  endured. 
In  order  to  give  to  the  Southern  blacks  what  the  punitive 
provisions  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  failed  to  secure 
21  L 


242         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

for  them — namely,  enfranchisement — the  Fifteenth  Article 
was  established.  The  whole  gist  of  the  Congressional  and 
State  legislative  debates  thereon  expressly  declares  that  this 
was  the  intention,  the  scope,  the  purport  of  the  article. 
Remembering  that  citizenship  does  not  imply  enfranchise- 
ment, what  does  the  Fifteenth  amendment  prescribe? 
"  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not 
be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States,  or  by  any  State,  on 
account  of  race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 
That  is,  stating  it  affirmatively  so  far  as  this  article  is  con- 
cerned, any  State  in  the  Union,  or  the  United  States,  may  deny 
or  abridge  the  right  of  citizens  to  vote  except  on  account  of 
race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude.  Now,  unless 
women  are  a  distinct  race,  or  unless  the  element  of  woman- 
hood constitutes  color,  or  unless  women  as  a  class  have 
been  held  in  a. prior  condition  of  servitude  (which  last  can 
hardly  be  argued,  save  perhaps  in  the  case  of  marriage),  the 
right  of  suffrage  is  not  conferred  upon  them  by  any  words 
of  the  Fifteenth  amendment.  The  entire  argument,  indeed, 
is  based  upon  the  assertion  that  the  decreal  of  citizenship 
in  the  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  impliedly 
bestows  the  right  to  exercise  the  elective  franchise ;  and  this 
proposition  has  been  proved  to  have  no  foundation  in  either 
our  political  or  constitutional  law,  and  to  be  in  direct  contra- 
vention of  all  abstract,  fundamental  principles  of  citizenship. 
The  general  tenor  of  the  original  Constitution,  in  fact, 
refutes  the  theory.  Citizenship  as  therein  regarded  is  purely 
a  possession  of  civil  rights,  and  by  the  incorporation  of  the 
substance  of  the  English  bill  of  rights  into  that  instru- 
ment such  citizenship  is  virtually  defined  to  be  the  right  of 
protection  to  life,  liberty  and  property.  Suffrage,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  viewed  by  the  framers  of  our  Constitution 
as  a  distinct  political  right,  separated  entirely  from  citizen- 
ship ;  for  while  the  latter  was  considered  as  the  normal 
condition  of  the  free  native  population  by  that  instrument, 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         243 

the  former  was  impliedly  left  to  the  judgment  and  super- 
vision of  the  several  States. 

The  opinions  advanced  in  this  discussion  have  all  been 
recently  held  legitimate  and  consistent  with  established 
principle  and  precedent,  in  suits  brought  under  these 
amendments  to  test  the  validity  of  the  woman-suffrage  doc- 
trine, by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  one  of  the  most  eminent  jurists  of  Pennsylvania,  Judge 
Sharswood,  as  well  as  Judge  Jameson  of  Illinois,  and  have 
not  been  denied  by  any  American  jurist  except  Judge 
Underwood  of  Virginia,  and  his  was  a  mere  extra-judicial 
opinion,  not  given  in  the  course  of  a  legal  proceeding. 

The  next  topic  which  presses  itself  upon  our  attention  in 
this  discussion  of  the  resulting  effect  of  the  Fourteenth 
amendment  upon  the  community  is  in  reference  to  the 
status,  under  the  operation  of  this  article  of  our  organic 
law,  of  what  are  in  a  general  way  termed  "monopolies." 
This  term,  however,  must  be  regarded  in  a  very  general 
sense,  for  the  grant  of  exclusive  privileges  to  corporations 
and  individuals  by  our  State  and  United  States  Govern- 
ments, to  which  the  term  "monopolies"  is  somewhat 
loosely  applied,  differs  materially  from  the  old  English 
statute  of  monopolies  whereby  such  exclusive  grants  were 
first  established.  In  the  latter  case  such  grants  were  abso- 
lute and  unqualified,  while  in  the  former  they  are  both  rela- 
tive and  conditioned.  The  difference  may  be  best  seen  by 
illustration.  The  English  statute,  for  instance,  would  vest 
in  a  certain  individual,  class  or  guild  the  exclusive  right  of 
manufacturing  a  peculiar  article  or  pursuing  a  particular 
industry  under  all  possible  forms,  while  the  present  system 
vests  such  an  exclusive  right  under  only  one  form,  leaving 
the  same  result  to  be  obtained  by  different  methods,  free 
and  open  to  any  who  may  have  the  ability  to  devise  them. 
The  term  "monopolies,"  then,  in  the  general  sense  in 
which  it  is  now  used,  is  intended  to  cover  both  franchises 


244         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS, 

and  patents ;  whereas  in  its  original  legal  signification  it 
referred  alone  to  grants  of  the  last-named  character,  and 
that  in  the  manner  above  described. 

Under  the  operation  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  the 
principle  has  been  asserted  that  such  exclusive  grants  tend 
to  a  subversion  of  the  first  section  of  this  article.  The 
foundation  of  this  claim  may  be  best  seen  in  the  narration 
of  a  very  important  case  now  awaiting  final  adjudication. 
Prior  to  the  year  1869  the  slaughter-houses  of  New  Orleans 
were  in  very  many  of  the  most  densely-populated  portions  of 
the  city.  Under  the  declared  intention  of  promoting  the 
sanitary  condition  of  New  Orleans,  and  by  virtue  of  the  State 
right  to  exercise  police  regulations  within  State  limits,  the 
legislature  of  Louisiana  incorporated  the  Crescent  City 
Live-Stock  Landing  and  Slaughtering  Company.  The  act 
of  incorporation  conferred  upon  the  company  an  exclusive 
right  to  prosecute  the  business  within  certain  limits  for 
twenty-five  years,  discontinued  all  other  yards,  slaughter- 
houses and  stock-landings,  and  gave  said  company  the  right 
to  levy  a  stated  assessment  upon  all  cattle  slaughtered  at 
their  establishments.  A  number  of  suits  were  brought  by 
injured  parties  to  test  the  legality  of  the  monopoly,  and  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State  sustained  the  same.  Upon  ap- 
peal to  the  United  States  Circuit,  however,  Justices  Bradley 
and  Woods  presiding,  the  grant  by  the  legislature  of  Lou- 
isiana was  declared  unconstitutional,  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  the  following  provision  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment 
was  violated  thereby — namely:  "No  State  shall  make  or 
enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immu- 
nities of  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  nor  shall  any  State 
deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion the  equal  protection  of  the  laws."  The  gist  of  the 
opinion  is,  that  while  the  immunities  and  privileges  of  citi- 
zens with  which  the  Fourteenth  amendment  forbids  inter- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         245 

ference  are  somewhat  inappreciable  of  exact  definition,  the 
right  to  follow  any  legal  vocation  is  certainly  one  of  them  ; 
that  such  a  right,  indeed,  is  the  mere  right  of  labor ;  and 
that,  as  the  act  of  the  Louisiana  legislature  deprived  certain 
butchers  of  New  Orleans  of  this  right,  the  same  was  uncon- 
stitutional. Anticipating  the  objection  which  would  be 
raised  to  this  opinion  by  holders  of  patents  and  franchises, 
the  court  remarked,  obiter  dicta,  that  the  former  were  valid, 
because  to  holders  thereof  "society  only  gives  the  tempo- 
rary use  of  that  which,  without  them,  it  would  not  have 
had  the  benefit  of,  as  a  consideration  of  that  benefit  and  to 
encourage  others  to  make  use  of  their  powers."  In  refer- 
ence to  the  latter,  the  court  also  remarked  upon  their 
validity,  on  the  ground  that  the  privileges  thus  conferred 
could  not  be  exercised  by  individuals  to  any  extent  except 
through  the  means  of  corporate  associations  established  by 
legislative  act,  and  that  "  society  obtains  a  consideration 
for  the  grant  of  these  franchises  in  the  investment  of  large 
amounts  of  capital  in  public  improvements  which  are  re- 
quired for  the  development  of  the  country  and  its  re- 
sources." 

The  New  York  Nation,  in  its  issue  of  December  i,  1870, 
in  its  usual  able  and  forcible  manner  (to  whose  article  we 
are  indebted  for  the  foregoing  analysis  of  the  case),  com- 
bats this  opinion  of  the  United  States  Court,  and  pro- 
nounces it  unsound.  The  limits  of  this  treatise  will  not 
permit  an  extended  discussion  of  this  case  or  the  topic  to 
which  it  belongs.  The  statement  is  ventured,  however, 
that  the  conclusion  arrived  at  by  the  court  is  correct,  al- 
though its  reasoning  is,  with  all  due  deference,  if  we  may 
be  allowed  the  remark,  somewhat  superficial,  and  its 
premises  are  hardly  tenable.  The  act  of  the  Louisiana  leg- 
islature appears  to  be  unconstitutional  for  a  very  plain  and 
simple  reason,  but  not  by  reason  of  a  particular  violation 
of  the  Fourteenth  amendment.  The  Constitution  guaran- 
II  • 


246         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tees  the  right  of  property  to  all  persons  within  the  limits  of 
the  United  States.  This  guarantee  of  the  right  of  property, 
moreover,  has  been  invariably  considered  by  judicial  au- 
thority to  preclude  the  existence  of  absolute  and  unqualified 
monopolies.  The  general  spirit  and  genius  of  our  institu- 
tions is  utterly  opposed  to  them.  By  "absolute  and  unquali- 
fied monopolies"  is  intended  such  exclusive  grants  as  were 
conferred  by  the  original  English  statute  of  monopolies — 
namely,  an  exclusive  privilege  to  exercise  a  particular  voca- 
tion or  industry  in  all  possible  forms.  And  this  is  precisely 
such  a  privilege  as  the  legislature  of  Louisiana  conferred 
upon  the  company  before  named.  It  not  only  gave  a  cor- 
poration a  right  to  prosecute  not  a  particular  but  a  very  gen- 
eral industry  by  one  special,  but  every  possible  means.  If  the 
act  of  the  Louisiana  legislature  had  incorporated  the  com- 
pany with  the  exclusive  right  of  slaughtering  cattle  within 
certain  districts,  leaving  the  same  vocation  open  for  prose- 
cution by  other  parties,  who  could  locate  in  certain  other 
districts  which  would  not  jeopardize  the  sanitary  condition 
of  the  city,  with  a  provision,  if  it  seemed  advisable,  that 
such  other  parties  must  also  become  incorporated,  the  measure 
would  have  been  sound  and  constitutional,  for  such  a  grant 
would  have  been  a  relative  and  conditioned  monopoly,  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  institutions  and  organic  law,  and  not  an 
absolute  and  unqualified  one,  in  pursuance  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish statute.  The  force  of  this  distinction  was  intimated 
in  the  outset,  and  the  absence  of  it  in  the  Nation' s  article 
before  referred  to  constitutes,  with  all  the  respect  to  which 
the  character  of  the  authority  is  entitled,  its  vulnerable 
point. 

This  distinction,  moreover,  embraces  every  case  which 
may  arise  under  the  Fourteenth  amendment  in  reference  to 
the  prejudice  thereby  of  the  rights  of  holders  of  patents 
and  franchises.  The  operation  of  the  article  merely  pro- 
hibits, if  it  prohibits  anything  in  this  direction,  and  that 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.          247 

impliedly,  the  granting  of  absolute  and  unqualified  mo- 
noplies  in  distinction  from  relative  and  conditioned  ones. 

If  the  Louisiana  case  comes  before  the  Supreme  Court, 
the  conclusion  of  the  lower  tribunal  might  properly  be  sus- 
tained, though  not  the  particular  premises  upon  which  the 
same  is  founded. 

Briefly  to  recapitulate,  the  result  of  the  operation  of  the 
amendment  is — 

First.  To  bestow  citizenship  upon  all  persons  born  or 
naturalized  in  the  United  States,  forbidding  by  any  State 
the  abridgment  of  the  privileges  of  such  citizenship,  the 
deprivation  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process 
of  law,  the  denial  of  the  protection  of  State  laws  to  any 
person  therein,  and  effecting  monopolies  as  already  de- 
scribed. 

Second.  To  apportion  Representatives  among  the  several 
States,  and  punish  States  who  shall  deny  any  male  inhabit- 
ant, twenty-one  years  of  age,  the  right  to  vote  at  any  State 
or  United  States  election,  except  for  crime,  by  a  propor- 
tionate diminution  of  its  representation  in  Congress. 

Third.  Imposes  disabilities  upon  certain  classes  of  the 
South,  with  privilege  of  removal  thereof  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  of  Congress. 

Fourth.  Affirms  the  validity  of  the  public  debt,  denies 
that  of  the  Confederate  one,  forbids  the  assumption  of  the 
latter  by  any  State  or  the  United  States,  as  well  as  pay- 
ment for  emancipated  slaves. 

A  criticism  of  the  merits  of  the  amendment,  in  the  ab- 
stract, is  now  logically  but  not  conveniently  in  order.  The 
Fourteenth  Article  initiates  in  a  minatory  form  a  scheme 
which  the  Fifteenth  carries  to  a  final  execution.  The  de- 
fects of  the  one  are  the  defects  of  the  other,  and  as  a  discus- 
sion of  the  same  in  this  connection  would  require  repeti- 
tion at  the  close  of  this  chapter,  such  an  examination  will 
be  to  that  time  and  place  deferred. 


248         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

THE  FIFTEENTH  AMENDMENT. 

The  causes  and  origin  of  the  Fifteenth  amendment  have 
incidentally  appeared  in  the  preceding  pages  of  the  present 
Chapter.  The  Fourteenth  Article  of  our  organic  law,  as 
already  stated,  did  not,  by  a  direct  affirmative  grant,  con- 
fer upon  the  colored  race  the  right  of  suffrage.  It  aimed 
to  accomplish  that  end  in  an  indirect  manner,  by  imposing 
political  proscription  upon  all  States  which  should  withhold 
the  right  from  their  colored  population.  An  absolute  en- 
franchisement of  the  colored  masses  at  this  juncture  the 
public  sentiment  of  the  nation  condemned  instead  of  in- 
dorsed. The  scheme  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  in  respect 
to  suffrage  proved  not  only  inadequate,  but  in  most  cases 
entirely  inoperative.  The  Southern  States,  for  the  most 
part,  left  the  blacks  in  their  former  condition  of  disfran- 
chisement,  and  submitted  to  the  consequent  political  pen- 
alty, as  what  seemed  to  them  the  lesser  evil.  To  actually 
establish  what  the  Fourteenth  Article,  by  its  punitive  pro- 
visions, failed  to  secure — namely,  the  right  of  suffrage  for 
the  colored  race — the  Fifteenth  amendment  was  devised 
and  promulgated.  This  is  the  only  end  which  this  article 
has  in  view.  It  is  in  a  negative  form — merely  prohibits 
the  denial  of  the  right  to  vote  to  any  citizen  on  account  of 
race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude.  For  all 
causes,  therefore,  except  the  three  above  named,  the  elec- 
tive franchise,  so  far  as  this  article  is  concerned,  may  be 
still  withheld.  The  text  of  the  amendment  is  as  follows : 

"SECTION  i.  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States, 
or  by  any  State,  on  account  of  race,  color  or  previous  con- 
dition of  servitude. 

"  SECTION  2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce 
this  article  by  appropriate  legislation." 

At  the  opening  of  Congress  in  December,  1868,  various 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         249 

resolutions  embracing  the  substance  of  the  amendment  as 
above  written  were  presented  to  that  body  for  adoption,  and 
after  about  the  usual  amount  of  debate,  reference  and  con- 
ference, a  resolution  proposing  the  present  article  for  ratifi- 
cation passed  the  Senate  and  House  February  25,  1869,  and 
was  submitted  immediately  thereafter  to  the  legislatures  of 
the  several  States.  March  30,  1870,  the  ratification  of  the 
amendment  was  certified  by  the  State  Department,  and  the 
same  declared  valid,  for  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  our  Constitution. 

As  to  the  legality  of  the  ratification  of  this  amendment  by 
the  States,  argument  is  entirely  unnecessary.  Such  legality 
depends  wholly  upon  the  status  of  the  late  insurrectionary 
States  whose  legislatures  aided  therein  ;  and  as  the  political 
relations  of  these  States  to  the  Union  were,  in  every  respect, 
of  a  similar  character  as  when  the  Thirteenth  Article  was 
promulgated,  the  discussion  upon  this  point,  as  seen  in  the 
examination  of  the  last-named  amendment,  is  both  perti- 
nent and  adequate  in  this  connection,  and  may  be  referred 
to  if  occasion  requires.  An  additional  word  of  comment 
upon  one  or  two  points,  however,  may  be  deemed  neces- 
sary for  the  sake  of  completeness. 

At  the  time  of  the  submission  of  the  amendment  to  the 
legislatures  of  the  several  States  for  ratification,  although  all 
of  the  lately  insurrectionary  ones  had  been  re-reconstructed 
under  the  Congressional  policy  of  March  2,  1867,  Virginia, 
Mississippi,  Texas  and  Georgia  had  not  been  admitted  to 
their  representation  in  Congress.  That  body  consequently 
passed  an  act  making  it  a  prerequisite  for  the  admission  of 
such  representation  that  the  legislatures  of  the  States  above 
named  should  ratify  the  proposed  amendment,  which  con- 
dition was  complied  with.  At  the  time  of  the  promulga- 
tion of  this  article,  moreover,  the  legislature  of  New  York, 
which  State  had  been  counted  in  the  necessary  three-fourths, 
alleged  a  withdrawal  of  its  assent  thereto  ;  but  as  Georgia, 

I,  2 


250         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

through  its  legislature,  had  announced  its  approval  subse- 
quent to  this  action  of  New  York,  and  after  the  necessary 
three-fourths  had  been  obtained,  barring  the  doubt  in  refer- 
ence to  the  latter,  this  possible  numerical  taint  upon  the 
validity  of  the  amendment  was  thereby  removed.  There 
was  also  a  doubt  of  prior  origin  in  reference  to  the  ratifica- 
tion of  the  legislature  of  New  York.  That  body  neglected 
to  instruct  the  governor  of  the  State  to  forward  the  usual 
statement  of  its  ratification  of  the  amendment  to  Washing- 
ton, as  had  been  the  custom  in  former  cases  of  this  cha- 
racter, and  the  same  was  received  by  the  State  Department 
from  another  official.  The  opponents  of  the  article  raised 
the  point  that  the  transmission  thereof  to  the  national  au- 
thorities by  the  governor  was  an  essential  element  of  the 
legal  ratification  of  the  amendment  by  the  legislature.  The 
objection,  as  it  was  everywhere  regarded  by  intelligent  and 
non-partisan  members  of  both  parties,  was  a  sheer  absurdity, 
and  is  answered  by  a  mere  statement  of  a  simple  and  well- 
defined  principle  of  legal  science — namely,  a  discretionary 
judicial  power  must  be  always  exercised  by  the  party  in 
whom  the  law  has  vested  the  same,  while  the  performance 
of  ministerial  duties  is  valid  at  the  hands  of  any  agency 
acting  for  the  time  being  in  that  particular  capacity.  Com- 
ment is  unnecessary. 

There  was  apparent  difficulty,  in  the  outset,  in  the  case 
of  Indiana.  When  the  amendment  came  before  the  legis- 
lature of  that  State  for  ratification,  the  Democratic  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  thereof  resigned  with  a 
view  of  destroying  an  official  quorum,  and  so  prevent 
action  upon  the  amendment.  The  number  of  Representa- 
tives before  the  resignation  above  named  was  one  hundred 
and  one.  The  number  resigning  was  forty-one,  thus  leav- 
ing sixty  in  their  official  positions.  Fifty-seven  members 
were  present  when  the  amendment  was  ratified.  The  con- 
stitution of  the  State  requires  two-thirds  of  the  House  to 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         25  I 

be  present  for  purposes  of  legislation,  which,  before  the 
resignation  of  the  Democratic  members,  would  have  been 
sixty-seven.  As  their  resignation  reduced  the  original 
number  below  this  (sixty-seven),  the  faction  argued  that 
the  ratification  was  illegal.  The  Speaker's  ruling  upon  the 
vote  was  as  follows — namely:  "For  ordinary  legislation 
the  State  constitution  prescribes  that  two-thirds  of  the 
House  (or  sixty-seven  members)  constitute  a  quorum,  but 
it  does  not  define  what  number  of  members,  more  than  a 
simple  majority  of  the  legislature,  shall  be  sufficient  to  act 
upon  a  proposed  amendment  to  the  United  States  Constitu- 
tion. The  amendment  is  therefore  adopted."  Unless  the 
constitution  of  the  State  fixes  the  House  of  Representatives 
at  an  arbitrary  number,  the  validity  of  the  above  action 
rests  upon  other  grounds.  Members  cannot  resign  and  still 
be  members ;  and  when  the  forty- one  Democrats  resigned 
(not  merely  absented  themselves),  unless  the  constitution 
of  the  State  gives  a  numerical  definition  of  the  House,  the 
remaining  sixty  constituted  the  entire  branch  of  the  legis- 
lature, and  all  but  three  of  this  sixty  were  present  on  the 
occasion — not  only  a  majority,  but  more  even  than  two- 
thirds  or  three-fourths.  Upon  the  ratification  of  the 
amendment  by  the  legislature  of  Georgia,  however — which 
occurred,  as  hereinbefore  stated,  after  the  necessary  three- 
fourths  had  been  obtained — the  doubt  as  to  New  York  hav- 
ing been  removed,  Indiana  was  not  needed  to  make  up  the 
necessary  number  of  twenty-nine  States;  so  this  point  is 
not  enveloped  in  uncertainty. 

When  the  Fourteenth  amendment  was  under  considera- 
tion it  appeared  that  the  legislatures  of  New  Jersey  and 
Ohio  alleged  a  withdrawal  of  their  ratification  of  that  arti- 
cle. In  the  present  instance,  moreover,  it  has  been  seen 
that  the  legislature  of  New  York  assumed  a  similar  position. 
The  soundness  of  the  doctrine  thereby  alleged'  will  now 
receive  examination,  when  the  constitutionality  of  the 


252         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

amendment  will  form  the  subject  of  discussion.  The  anal- 
ysis of  the  question  is  very  simple,  and  the  same  will  there- 
fore not  require  extended  comment. 

The  subject-matter  upon  which  the  legislature  of  a  State 
assumes  to  act  in  an  alleged  withdrawal,  as  above  stated,  is 
a  proposed  article  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
The  question  is  here  pertinent,  From  what  source  does  a 
State  legislature  derive  its  power  to  take  action  upon  such 
subject-matters?  The  answer  furnishes  a  key  to  a  solution 
of  the  whole  inquiry :  It  derives  such  power  from  the  Con- 
stitution— from  the  organic  law  of  the  nation — and  the  ex- 
tent of  its  power  in  this  direction  is  consequently  measured 
by  the  words  of  our  national  charter  whereby  such  power 
is  conferred.  These  are  :  Proposed  amendments  "shall  be 
valid  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  a  part  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, when  ratified  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of 
the  several  States,"  etc.  etc.  The  above  is  the  only  clause 
of  the  Constitution  which  gives  a  warrant  for  action  of 
State  legislatures  upon  proposed  amendments  thereto. 
Such  action,  as  already  stated,  must  be  confined  within  the 
scope  of  the  power  raised  thereby.  Now,  this  power  is  an 
affirmative  and  not  a  negative  one,  except  in  the  first  in- 
stance, and  that  impliedly.  It  provides  for  affirmation,  for 
ratification  expressly,  and  thereby,  impliedly,  for  rejection  in 
the  first  instance;  but  it  does  not  authorize,  either  expressly 
or  impliedly,  a  negation  in  the  second  instance — that  is, 
recision.  The  right  of  rejection  in  the  first  instance  is 
necessarily  implied  in  the  right  to  vote  upon  the  proposed 
amendment  conferred  by  the  Constitution  upon  the  State 
legislature,  for  the  vote  may  be  aye  .or  nay;  but  beyond 
this  upon  this  point  the  instrument  speaks  npt,  either  in 
express  words  or  by  implication.  Too  much  force  cannot  be 
laid  upon  the  thought  just  expressed.  Rejection  is  always 
implied  in  a  power  of  affirmation,  but  recision  never. 
Affirmation  and  rejection  are  component  parts  of  one  stage 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        253 

of  parliamentary  action.  Recision  is  an  entirely  separate 
element  of  such  action,  and  one  remove  in  advance  of  an 
affirmative  or  rcjective  vote.  The  term  recision  must  not, 
moreover,  be  confounded  with  rejection  or  negation.  The 
latter  intend  a  primal  conclusion  upon  any  subject-matter — 
the  former  a  second  conclusion,  whereby  such  primal  one  is 
reversed.  Applying  the  most  liberal  interpretation  and 
construction  possible  to  the  constitutional  clause  above 
cited,  no  power  of  recision  lies  hid  in  the  words  thereof. 
It  is  a  simple  express  power  of  affirmation,  of  ratification, 
carrying  with  it,  impliedly,  the  additional  one  of  a  simple 
negative  in  the  first  instance— the  mere  right  of  rejection. 

Such  an  alleged  withdrawal,  as  already  stated,  as  the 
legislatures  of  Ohio,  New  York  and  New  Jersey  assumed 
to  make,  is  the  baldest  kind  of  brainless  parliamentary  ac- 
tion, and  reflects  anything  but  credit  upon  the  intelligence 
of  the  deliberative  bodies  above  named. 

Look,  for  a  moment,  at  the  full  effect  which  would  result 
from  the  operation  of  this  alleged  power  of  recision  which 
its  claimants  hold  they  are  entitled  to  exercise.  Where  is 
the  limit  to  be  placed  upon  such  action  ?  There  is  no 
bound  set  upon  it  by  the  United  States  or  any  State  con- 
stitution ;  therefore  it  may  be  pursued  to  any  and  every 
possible  extent  to  which  the  whim  or  caprice  of  any  par- 
ticular legislature  of  a  particular  period  may  see  fit  to  com- 
mit itself.  In  the  absence  of  an  express  bar,  there  is  no 
point  beyond  which  this  power  of  recision  may  not  be 
invoked.  What  is  to  hinder,  then,  a  State  legislature  from 
withdrawing  its  ratification  of  an  amendment  after  pro- 
mulgation by  the  national  authorities  as  well  as  before? 
Clearly  nothing.  Admit  this  right  of  recision,  then,  upon 
the  basis  of  its  claimants,  and  there  is  not  one  of  the  fif- 
teen amendments  to  our  Constitution  which  cannot,  even 
at  this  late  day,  be  set  aside  by  this  abortive  species  of 
legislative  action  on  the  part  of  the  States. 
22 


254  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Under  the  power  to  act  upon  proposed  amendments  to 
the  national  Constitution  conferred  upon  the  State  legisla- 
tures by  that  instrument,  the  ultimate  boundary  of  which 
power  is  the  implied  right  of  rejection — negation — in  the 
first  instance,  a  ratification  of  any  such  amendment  by  a 
particular  legislature  vests  a  right  in  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  for  the  withdrawal  of  which  the  sanction 
of  constitutional  or  statute  law  or  precedent  is  sought  in 
vain.  The  only  method  of  disposing  of  an  objectionable 
amendment  in  a  legal  and  constitutional  form  is  to  again 
amend. 

A  discussion  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  Fifteenth,  and 
thereby  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  in  so  far  as  the  latter 
bears  upon  the  subject  of  suffrage,  is  now  in  order.  Many 
of  the  principles  advanced  in  the  examination  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Article  upon  this  point  are  pertinent  in  this  connec- 
tion. In  the  light  of  these  principles  the  inquiry  is,  Is  an 
amendment  to  the  national  Constitution,  whereby  the  right 
of  suffrage  in  the  several  States  is  interfered  with,  constitu- 
tionally valid  ?  Referring  to  the  discussion  above  named, 
it  was  seen  in  that  connection  that  the  powers  granted  by 
the  Constitution  are  special,  general  and  implied ;  that 
upon  the  same  subject-matter  the  first  override  the  second 
to  the  extent  which  such  special  powers  operate  thereon  ; 
that  the  second  override  the  third  in  the  same  degree  under 
the  same  relative  conditions ;  and  that  the  same  rules  apply 
where  the  sanction  of  constitutional  authority  is  invoked 
to  legalize  the  exercise  of  some  very  general  power  for 
which  it  is  difficult  to  find  authority,  in  any  of  the  three 
forms  above  named,  in  the  letter  or  spirit  of  our  organic 
law.  For  a  fuller  statement  of  these  principles  reference 
may  be  had  to  the  discussion  already  noticed.  Recurring 
still  further  to  the  same  portion  of  this  treatise,  it  is  seen 
that  the  sole  powers  declared  in  the  Constitution  for  amend- 
ment thereof  are  found  in  the  Fifth  Article,  and  in  the  first 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         255 

and  fourth  clauses  of  the  ninth  section  of  the  First  Article — 
namely : 

"ARTICLE  V. 

"The  Congress,  whenever  two-thirds  of  both  Houses  shall 
deem  it  necessary,  shall  propose  amendments  to  this  Con- 
stitution, or,  on  the  application  of  the  legislatures  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  several  States,  shall  call  a  convention  for  pro- 
posing amendments,  which,  in  either  case,  shall  be  valid, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  part  of  this  Constitution, 
when  ratified  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the 
several  States,  or  by  conventions  in  three-fourths  thereof, 
as  the  one  or  the  other  mode'  of  ratification  may  be  pro- 
posed by  the  Congress ;  provided,  that  no  amendment 
which  may  be  made  prior  to  the  year  one  thousand  and 
eight  hundred  and  eight  shall  in  any  manner  affect  the 
first  and  fourth  clauses  in  the  ninth  section  of  the  First 
Article;  and  that  no  State,  without  its  consent,  shall  be  de- 
prived of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate." 

Article  /.,  Section  9,  clauses  first  and  fourth. 

First  clause:  "The  migration  or  importation  of  such 
persons  as  any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall  think  proper 
to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress  prior  to 
the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight,  but  a  tax 
or  duty  may  be  imposed  on  such  importation,  not  exceed- 
ing ten  dollars  for  each  person." 

Fourth  clause :  "No  capitation,  or  other  direct  tax  shall 
be  laid,  unless  in  proportion  to  the  census  or  enumeration 
hereinbefore  directed  to  be  taken." 

Keeping  in  mind  the  line  of  discussion  upon  this  point 
as  connected  with  the  Thirteenth  Article,  the  words  of  the 
Fifth  Article  above  named,  down  to  the  word  "  Provided," 
constitute  a  general  power  of  amendment,  while  the  re- 
maining portion  of  said  article,  together  with  the  clauses 


256         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  the  first  one  which  follow  it,  forms  a  special  power  of 
amendment,  and  supersedes  the  general  power  just  stated  to 
the  extent  of  its  operation.  How  does  this  special  power 
limit  the  general  power  of  amendment  as  to  suffrage? 
It  places  a  perpetual  inhibition  upon  an  amendment 
which  shall  deprive  any  State,  without  its  consent,  of  its 
equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate.  The  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
amendments  trench  upon  this  inhibition  in  no  single  par- 
ticular, and  thus  far,  at  least,  their  constitutionality  is  not 
open  to  question. 

In  this  connection,  however,  the  second  section  of  the 
First  Article  is  cited  to  combat  our  position — namely : 

Second  Section  of  Article  I. 

"  The  House  of  Representatives  shall  be  composed  of 
members  chosen  every  second  year  by  the  people  of  the 
several  States,  and  the  electors  in  each  State  shall  have  the 
qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous 
branch  of  the  State  legislature." 

Here  is  a  general  power,  containing  also  an  implied  one, 
which  leaves  the  regulation  of  the  privilege  of  suffrage  to 
the  several  States ;  and  how  shall  this  general  power  of 
suffrage  be  superseded  by  another  general  power  of  amend- 
ment ?  Allusion  to  the  same  discussion  already  cited  recalls 
the  principle  asserted  by  Chief-Justice  Marshall  of  the 
Supreme  Court  in  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  that  "every  power 
granted  by  the  Constitution  is  complete  in  itself,  may  be 
exercised  to  its  utmost  extent,  and  acknowledges  no  limit- 
ation except  that  which  is  written  in  the  Constitution." 
That  is,  every  general  power  of  the  Constitution  may  be 
exercised  to  its  fullest  extent  unless  some  special  power  upon 
the  same  subject-matter  steps  in  and  supersedes  it.  The 
power  in  reference  to  suffrage,  above  named,  is  a  general 
one ;  so  is  the  power  of  amendment  now  under  discussion. 
Either  may  be  exercised  ad  infinitum,  barring  inhibitions 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS. 

of  special  powers  in  the  same  direction.  The  only  inhi- 
bition of  this  sort  in  this  connection  is  that  which  prohibits 
an  amendment  which  shall  deny  a  State,  without  its  con- 
sent, its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate. 

Again,  the  Tenth  Article  is  invoked  to  defeat  the  legality 
of  these  amendments — namely : 

"ARTICLE  X. 

"The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the 
Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved 
to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  people." 

The  power  over  suffrage  is  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  it  is  true,  but  the  general  power 
of  amendment  is  ;  and  the  same  may  be  exercised  indefi- 
nitely, except  as  it  shall  run  counter  to  inhibitions  thereon 
in  the  shape  of  special  powers,  and  defeat  the  operation  of 
one  abstract  principle  underlying  the  whole  Constitution, 
which  will  be  noticed  in  the  next  particular. 

Intemperate  advocates  of  these  amendments  have  claimed 
that  the  power  over  suffrage  was  left  directly  with  the  Gen- 
eral Government  by  our  organic  law.  Nothing  could  be 
farther  from  the  truth.  The  infant  colonies  that  were 
formed  under  the  auspices  of  the  mother-country  regulated 
the  elective  franchise  as  seemed  best  for  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions of  each  respective  company,  and  the  same  held  true 
in  the  case  of  the  States  under  the  Confederation.  As  to 
the  status  of  suffrage  under  the  present  Constitution,  the 
matter  is  one  of  history  as  well  as  law.  In  the  convention 
which  framed  the  Constitution,  when  the  subject  of  suffrage 
engrossed  the  attention  of  that  body,  two  schemes  of  gov- 
ernment for  the  elective  franchise  were  presented  for  adop- 
tion. The  first  contemplated  a  uniform  basis  of  suffrage 
throughout  the  entire  country — that  is,  suffrage  as  a  national 
and  not  as  a  State  institution.  The  second  had  for  its  object 
a  continuance  of  the  plan  which  had  existed  under  the  Colo- 
22  • 


258          THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

nial  and  Confederate  Governments — namely,  the  right  of 
the  several  States  to  regulate  the  elective  franchise  within 
their  respective  limits.  The  latter,  although  the  former  was 
advocated  by  many  of  the  best  minds  of  the  convention, 
was  approved  upon  the  final  vote.  It  was  one  of  the  con- 
cessions made  by  the  federal  to  the  democratic  element, 
in  order  to  release  itself  from  the  suicidal  sway  of  the 
Confederation.  That  the  power  over  suffrage  was  left  to 
the  several  States  by  the  Constitution  was  expressly  asserted, 
indeed,  in  the  platform  of  the  Chicago  Convention  which 
nominated  General  Grant  for  the  presidency;  and  when 
the  Fourteenth  amendment  was  proposed  in  Congress  the 
fact  was  cited  by  the  Democratic  members  as  an  estoppel 
upon  the  Republican  party  in  its  proposed  action  of 
framing  that  article.  The  point  is  not  particularly  perti- 
nent, as  the  constitutionality  of  the  amendments  rests  upon 
other  grounds,  already  stated. 

As  to  the  ultimate  extent  to  which  the  power  of  amend- 
ment may  be  exercised,  a  little  additional  comment  may 
not  be  wearisome.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
contemplates  a  republican  form  of  government.  The  en- 
tire spirit  and  genius  of  our  institutions  is  stamped  with 
its  impress,  the  debates  of  the  convention  from  which  ema- 
nated our  primal  organic  code,  as  well  as  the  letter  of  the 
instrument  itself,  give  indisputable  evidence  of  this  inten- 
tion, and  every  amendment  thereto  has  sought  to  extend 
the  benefits  and  perfect  the  workings  of  a  republican  sys- 
tem. To  attempt  by  a  constitutional  amendment  to  abso- 
lutely change  our  form  of  government  would  therefore  be 
regarded  by  the  people  of  this  republic  as  almost  a  sacri- 
lege ;  and  such  a  measure,  moreover,  would  find  no  war- 
rant in  the  precedents  and  principles  of  our  constitutional 
law.  The  British  Parliament  undoubtedly  has  authority  to 
entirely  remodel  the  government  of  Great  Britain  by  a 
simple  act  of  legislation,  as  the  constitution,  the  organic 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         2 59 

law  thereof,  consists  entirely  of  acts  of  Parliament  and 
sundry  and  quasi  bills  of  rights  allmued,  at  the  instance  of 
Parliament,  by  the  Crown.  The  fundamental  law  of  the 
English  realm,  in  other  words,  is  a  mere  creature  of  Par- 
liament, and  by  it  may  be  either  abridged,  extended, 
amended  or  entirely  abrogated.  Not  so  with  the  United 
States.  Our  Government  is  a  creation  of  the  people,  and 
not  of  Congress ;  and  while  the  former  alone — if  the  right 
of  a  numerical  majority  to  rule  is  conceded  as  an  abstract 
principle  of  the  science  of  government — may  legally  de- 
cide to  change  our  form  of  government  by  an  abrogation 
of  our  present  Constitution,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
separately  or  conjointly,  can  secure  such  an  end  by  an 
amendment  thereto.  Such  a  course  would  be  a  mere  at- 
tempt to  abolish  republican  institutions  under  an  authority 
alleged  to  be  derived  from  a  constitution  which  impliedly 
declares  that  republican  institutions  never  shall  be  abolished, 
and  would  not  only  be  a  betrayal  of  the  most  sacred  trust, 
but  an  ignorant  abuse  of  the  hermeneutical  principles  of 
both  legal  and  political  science. 

The  general  power  of  amendment  to  our  Constitution, 
then,  may  be  exercised  to  the  fullest  possible  extent  so  long 
as  it  neither  infringes  upon  the  inhibition  of  a  special  power, 
like  that  which  prohibits  a  denial  to  the  States  of  their 
equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate  without  their  consent,  nor  tends 
to  subvert  or  overthrow  our  present  republican  form  of 
government. 

This  latter  point  has  been  dwelt  upon  somewhat  at  length, 
as  an  honorable  member  of  the  United  States  Senate,  at  the 
time  the  proposed  Fourteenth  amendment  was  discussed  by 
that  body,  hazarded  the  statement  that  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  might  absolutely  and  legally  change  the 
character  of  the  General  Government.  The  position  was 
a  grave  departure  from  law. 

To  conclude  this  examination  of  the  constitutional  va- 


260         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

lidity  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments,  the 
same  may  be  undoubtedly  affirmed.  The  discussion  has 
been  close  and  seemingly  curtailed.  There  was  no  neces- 
sity for  its  being  otherwise,  as  the  various  points  were  elabo- 
rated in  detail  when  the  Thirteenth  Article  engaged  atten- 
tion, to  which  reference  may  be  had  for  particulars. 

In  respect  to  the  results  effected  by  the  operation  of  the 
Fifteenth  amendment  very  little  need  be  said,  except  in  one 
particular.  The  article  merely  forbids  the  political  pro- 
scription of  any  male  citizen  of  twenty-one  years  of  age  by 
the  States  or  the  United  States  for  three  causes — race,  color 
or  prior  condition  of  servitude.  For  all  other  causes,  so 
far  as  the  operation  of  the  Fifteenth  Article  alone  is  con- 
cerned, suffrage  may  be  legally  restricted,  the  elective  fran- 
chise legally  denied  to  any  citizen,  throughout  the  several 
States,  in  accordance  with  their  own  peculiar  tenets.  It 
will  be  remembered,  however,  in  this  connection,  that  for 
a  denial  of  the  right  to  vote  to  such  male  citizens  of  twenty- 
one  years  of  age  as  the  Fifteenth  Article  aims  to  enfranchise, 
and  to  all  male  citizens  of  that  age  in  fact,  except  crimi- 
nals, the  Fourteenth  amendment  imposes  a  penalty  of  a 
relative  diminution  of  the  Congressional  representation  of 
any  and  every  State  that  enforces  such  restriction.  In  other 
words,  the  Fourteenth  Article  provides  a  means  of  punish- 
ment for  the  political  proscription  of  certain  male  citizens 
who  have  attained  their  majority,  and  the  Fifteenth  amend- 
ment declares  such  proscription  shall  not  exist  in  respect  to  our 
prior  slave  population.  The  consequences  are — first,  a  State 
may  still  illegally  deny  the  elective  franchise  to  citizens  who 
come  within  the  purview  of  these  amendments ;  and,  second, 
notwithstanding  such  proscription,  the  citizens  contemplated 
by  the  Fifteenth  Article,  at  least,  may  vote  .by  reason  of  the 
paramount  authority  of  the  same  as  conferred  by  the  Gen- 
eral Government.  The  question  is  then  pertinent,  If  a 
State  proscribes  certain  of  its  citizens  in  violation  of  the 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         26 1 

Fifteenth  amendment,  shall  the  penalties  of  the  Fourteenth 
Article  be  imposed,  notwithstanding  the  proscribed  citizens, 
by  virtue  of  the  paramount  authority  of  the  Fifteenth  amend- 
ment, cast  their  ballots  in  spite  of  such  State  proscription  ? 
In  other  words,  Shall  a  State  proscription,  rendered  perfectly 
powerless  by  the  Fifteenth  Article,  suffer  the  punishment  pro- 
vided by  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  or  does  the  Fifteenth 
Article,  in  annulling  such  proscription,  repeal  these  puni- 
tive provisions  of  the  preceding  one?  As  restrictions  upon 
the  privilege  of  exercising  the  elective  franchise,  contrary 
to  the  letter  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Articles,  still 
exist  in  several  of  the  State  constitutions,  a  solution  of  this 
problem  makes  quite  a  material  difference  in  the  numerical 
character  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

The  alternative,  that  the  Fifteenth  Article  repealed  the 
punitive  provisions  of  the  preceding  one,  was  insisted  upon 
by  some  of  the  States  whose  constitutions  were  repugnant 
to  these  new  provisions  of  our  organic  law.  The  opposite 
opinion  has,  however,  obtained  precedence,  and  in  the  re- 
cent apportionment  of  Representatives  by  Congress  under 
the  census  of  1870,  a  section  of  the  act  provides  that  for  all 
future  proscription  by  the  States  in  violation  of  the  Four- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  Articles  the  penalties  of  the  first- 
named  amendment  shall  be  enforced.  This  rule  of  appor- 
tionment is  undoubtedly  correct. 

The  grounds  of  the  conclusion  above  stated,  which  in- 
deed was  the  only  one  that  could  be  arrived  at  without 
doing  violence  to  the  plainest  rules  of  legal  construction, 
are  substantially  as  follows :  The  Fifteenth  amendment 
in  no  way  repeals  the  punitive  provisions  of  the  Fourteenth 
Article  by  express  words.  If  there  is  any  such  repeal, 
therefore,  it  is  by  implication.  A  repeal  by  implication  is 
never  allowed  unless  the  prior  statute  is  so  repugnant  to  the 
subsequent  one  that  both  cannot  stand  together.  There  is 
no  such  clash  in  the  practical  workings  of  these  two 


262  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

articles.  Both  may  be  enforced  to  the  fullest  extent,  and 
result  in  no  contradiction  of  one  by  the  other.  Moreover, 
the  Fifteenth  Article  does  not  literally  abolish — although  it 
ultimately  renders  powerless — those  portions  of  State  organic 
law  which  are  in  opposition  thereto.  The  measures  of 
Congress  which  have  been  adopted  for  the  so-called  en- 
forcement of  this  article  cannot  be  legally  construed  to 
contemplate  that  the  organic  or  statute  law  of  any  State  is 
paramount  thereto.  That  would  be  a  surrender  of  the  su- 
premacy of  the  national  Constitution  as  established  by  ex- 
press words  of  that  charter.  The  measures  in  question  are 
mere  agencies  for  the  prevention  of  delay  which  State  resi- 
dents would  suffer  in  establishing  the  unconstitutionality 
of  local  law  which  might  contravene  the  provisions  of  the 
amendment.  The  article,  abstractly  speaking,  contains  its 
own  coercive  power,  and  legislation  therefor  is  bounded  by 
the  limits  above  stated. 

The  concluding  remarks,  not  only  of  this  immediate  sub- 
ject of  discussion,  but  of  the  present  chapter,  are  now  in 
order.  As  announced  in  the  outset,  they  will  consist  in  a 
criticism  of  the  merits  of  the  last  two  articles  of  our  organic 
law.  While  the  Thirteenth  Article  of  the  Constitution  had 
for  its  foundation  the  plainest  principles  of  reason  and 
justice,  and  was,  moreover,  a  stroke  of  politic  legislation, 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments,  so  far  as  they 
affect  the  elective  franchise,  are  not  only  unreasonable  and 
unjust — they  are  evidences  of  an  immature  policy  and  a 
superficial  statesmanship.  The  intention  of  these  amend- 
ments is  in  no  way  vulnerable.  Their  conception  is  alone  at 
fault.  They  contemplate  the  establishment  of  justice  and 
equality  in  respect  to  the  dearest  boon  of  the  American 
people,  but  they  sadly  mistake  the  means  for  the  attainment 
of  the  desired  end.  As  remarked  in  a  prior  stage  of  this 
discussion,  the  period  of  the  proposal  of  these  changes  in 
our  organic  law  was  peculiarly  available  for  placing  the 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.        263 

privilege  of  the  elective  franchise — not  the  abstract  right, 
for  such  a  right  suffrage  is  not — upon  a  national  basis,  and 
one,  moreover,  which  would  not  only  command  the  respect 
of  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  and  stamp  the  position 
of  an  elector  as  one  to  be  earnestly  desired  and  sought 
after  on  account  of  its  elevating  and  ennobling  character, 
but  a  basis,  moreover,  in  respect  to  which  the  necessity  of 
change  could  scarce  ever  exist.  What  is  government,  a 
voice  in  the  direction  of  which  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
amendments  have  given  to  every  male  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  not  guilty  of  crime,  that  has  attained  his  majority  ? 
Let  Burke  answer:  "Government  has  been  deemed  a  prac- 
tical thing,  made  for  the  happiness  of  mankind,  and  not  to 
furnish  out  a  spectacle  of  uniformity  to  gratify  the  schemes 
of  visionary  politicians."  Can  the  proper  management 
and  control  of  an  institution  which  indeed  does  have  for 
its  legitimate  end  "the  happiness  of  mankind  " — strangely 
as  the  definition  may  sound  to  Congressional  packers  of 
every  political  gathering,  from  a  village  caucus  up  to  a 
State  legislature — can  such  a  task  be  deemed  appreciable  by 
every  male  citizen  simply  because  he  has  become  twenty- 
one  years  of  age,  without  any  regard  to  collateral  circum- 
stances ?  It  would  seem  to  require  but  a  moment  of  calm 
and  sober  reflection  to  induce  a  negative  response.  The 
mere  element  of  age,  strictly  speaking,  is  the  last  requisite 
which  enters  into  the  component  parts  of  a  well-qualified 
elector.  True  it  is  that  an  arbitrary  line  must  of  necessity 
be  drawn  in  this  direction  before  a  man  shall  be  allowed 
the  privilege  to  vote,  but  the  constitutional  assertion  of  the 
United  States  that  age  is  the  first,  last  and  only  requisite  of 
a  legitimate  electoral  estate  is  an  absolute  burlesque  upon 
civilization  and  a  libel  upon  the  science  and  aims  of  gov- 
ernment. Call  it  what  we  will,  either  sin  or  misfortune, 
the  grand  defect  of  our  suffragan  policy — the  cancer  which 
is  gnawing  its  way  to  the  very  vitals  of  American  institu- 


264          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tions — is  that  the  corner-stone  thereof  is  Ignorance.  The 
Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments,  indeed,  offer  a 
premium  upon  ignorance,  and  put  a  lie  in  the  mouth  of  the 
General  Government.  Through  these  measures  the  United 
States,  the  American  republic — the  nation  which  proclaims 
to  the  world  that  it  has  established  and  is  perfecting  an 
institution  of  government  by  means  of  knowledge  wrung 
from  the  experience  of  past  ages  by  its  scholars  and  states- 
men, whose  names  upon  our  necrological  record  are  indeed 
a  galaxy  of  stars, — this  nation,  with  this  its  boast  of  intel- 
ligence as  to  governmental  knowledge,  issues  an  invitation 
which  indeed  is  broad:  "Ho,  all  ye  that  thirst  for  polit- 
ical power,  of  whatever  race,  tongue,  nation  or  people, 
irrespective  of  antecedent  conditions,  minding  not  your 
character  in  any  respect,  except  as  to  crime — whether  a 
savan  or  a  boor,  whether  cultured  or  illiterate,  even  to  ab- 
solute ignorance  of  the  alphabet, — come  ye,  convince  us 
that  you  are  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  were  either  born 
or  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  take  an  equal  share 
in  maintaining  and  perfecting  the  institutions  founded  by 
Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Franklin,  Randolph  and  Washington, 
saved  to  the  nineteenth  century  by  the  genuis  of  Webster, 
Clay  and  their  compatriots,  and  defended  to  the  present 
moment  at  the  cost  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  lives  and 
over  ten  thousand  millions  of  treasure  !" 

There  is  doubtless  ample  warrant  for  the  statement  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  ignorance  has  its  price,  while  intelligence 
has  not.  There  are,  of  course,  exceptions  to  both  corolla- 
ries of  the  proposition ;  still,  relatively  speaking,  they  are 
few  in  number.  Proof  of  the  assertion  is  afforded,  indeed, 
in  the  experience  of  this  country  in  regard  to  suffrage.  It 
would  be  a  very  difficult  if  not  absolutely  impossible  task 
to  point  to  any  extended  instance  of  the  purchase  of  votes 
from  our  intelligent  enfranchised  population.  It  is  a  sacri- 
fice of  manhood  which  nothing  but  ignorance,  and  the  at- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         26$ 

tendant  inability  to  comprehend  the  real  turpitude  of  the 
act,  will  for  a  moment  contemplate ;  but  at  the  immediate 
period  of  the  proposal  and  ratification  of  these  amendments 
a  glaring  exhibition  of  the  evil  results  of  an  unrestricted 
suffrage  in  this  direction  was  attracting  the  attention  of  our 
entire  country  and  of  Europe,  and  still  thwarts  the  efforts 
put  forth  for  its  removal.  The  State  of.  New  York,  at  that 
juncture  the  foremost  of  all  the  United  States  in  point  of 
population,  commerce,  wealth  and  advantages  of  every 
name  and  nature,  both  natural  and  artificial,  was  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  a  gang  of  the  veriest  robbers  and  free- 
booters that  ever  disgraced  the  history  of  any  nation  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  How  ?  By  means  of  the  purchase  of 
from  twenty-five  to  forty  thousand  votes  of  ignorant  natural- 
ized citizens,  whose  knowledge  did  not  even  cover  a  proper 
use  of  a  spade,  and  whose  self-respect  was  measured  by  the 
extent  of  their  bribes. 

It  is  for  these  and  many  kindred  reasons  that  the  Four- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  amendments  are  unreasonable;  that 
an  unrestricted  suffrage  is  unsound  and  unwholesome ;  nay 
more,  that  an  unrestricted  suffrage  is  not  an  "impartial" 
suffrage.  Its  injustice  is  manifested  in  the  evidence  of  its 
unreasonableness,  and  although  everywhere  apparent  in  the 
simple  fact  that  the  vote  of  a  citizen  of  the  class  that  has 
for  years  directed  and  controlled  the  government  of  the 
State  of  New  York  is  equal  in  force  with  that  of  an  elector 
of  ordinary  knowledge,  it  is  peculiarly  demonstrated  in  the 
present  political  condition  of  the  South.  Four-fifths  of  the 
enfranchised  people  of  that  section  of  our  country  are  per- 
sons whose  lamentably  unfortunate  past  condition  was  only 
equaled  by  their  present  ignorance.  Their  intellectual 
weakness  only  adds  to  their  credulity,  and  the  electoral 
power  of  which  at  present  they  are  so  unfittingly  possessed 
is  made  the  means,  through  gross  imposition,  of  foisting 
into  the  controlling  positions  of  the  governments  of  the 
23  M 


266          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Southern  States  unscrupulous  and  reckless  adventurers  from 
the  North  (nativity  in  the  latter  section  operating  as  a  blind 
upon  the  freedmen),  who  illegally  and  exorbitantly  assess 
a  proscribed  and  a  major  portion  of  the  tax-paying  popula- 
tion, formerly  rebels,  it  is  true,  flood  the  money-marts  with 
unwarranted  issues  of  government  securities,  and  plunge  the 
States  into  almost  hopeless  and  irretrievable  bankruptcy. 

The  argument  tin.a.t  justice  to  the  blacks  demanded  their 
immediate  enfranchisement,  no  matter  what  their  intel- 
lectual condition,  is  extremely  untenable.  Generosity  may 
have  required  it,  but  justice  never. 

This  collateral  point  in  respect  to  these  amendments 
opens  the  door  for  an  examination  of  their  impolitic  cha- 
racter. They  were  devised,  in  part,  for  the  purpose  of 
continuing  the  Republican  party,  for  a  while  at  least,  in  the 
control  of  the  General  Government — an  end,  as  already 
remarked,  under  the  then  existing  circumstances,  entirely 
commendable  and  greatly  to  be  desired.  It  could  have 
been  assured,  however,  by  more  just  and  far  more  politic 
means.  An  establishment  of  suffrage  upon  a  national  basis, 
with  a  stringent  qualification  of  intelligence,  accompanied 
by  a  measure  providing  for  a  universal  amnesty,  together 
with  a  rigorous  election  law  for  the  prevention  of  fraudu- 
lent voting,  would  have  secured  the  just  and  proper  demand 
of  the  dominant  party  above  named.  The  first  (the  suffrage 
measure)  would  have  thrown  the  control  of  some  of  the 
Southern  States',  though  not  all  of  them,  into  the  hands  of 
the  former  rebel  element.  This,  however,  would  have 
been  fully  offset  by  the  consequent  disfranchisement  of 
Democratic  ignorant  native  and  naturalized  whites  at  the 
North  and  West,  such  as  have  controlled  the  State  of  New 
York  and  are  rapidly  gaining  the  ascendency  in  Connecti- 
cut. The  second  (the  amnesty  measure)  would  have  done 
more  to  reconcile  the  former  rebellious  faction,  disperse 
the  Ku-klux  and  restore  the  South  than  all  the  reconstruc- 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS.         267 

tion  acts  and  Ku-klux  legislation  which  have  ever  emanated 
from  Congress.  Such  a  constitutional  measure,  moreover, 
could  have  been  adopted.  The  Southern  and  the  Middle 
(together  with  those  of  the  Northern)  States  which  rejected 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments  would  have 
given  it  unqualified  support,  and  the  remaining  num- 
ber necessary  for  its  ratification  could  have  been  easily 
secured  from  the  Northern  States  which  approved  the  last 
two  articles  above  named.  That  would  have  been  univer- 
sal amnesty  and  impartial  suffrage,  indeed. 

The  deduction  from  this  criticism  constitutes,  of  course, 
an  advocacy  of  intelligent  suffrage.  The  plea  is  here 
urged  that  an  unrestricted  suffrage  is  its  own  incentive  to 
the  education  of  those  who  exercise  it.  The  assertion 
betrays  an  unpardonable  ignorance  of  one  of  the  most 
prominent  characteristics  of  human  nature.  Frail  humanity 
is  so  constituted  that  when  it  has  presented  to  it  two  ways 
of  effecting  its  purposes,  one  with  effort  and  the  other 
without,  it  invariably  chooses  the  latter.  Equality,  as  a 
fundamental  element  of  republican  institutions,  is  also 
urged.  Let  such  a  sciolist  read  his  conviction  in  the  quota- 
tion from  Burke  already  cited.  Equality,  moreover,  is  only 
a  possession  of  such  rights  and  privileges  as  are  available 
by  all,  and  such  a  privilege  is  a  degree  of  intelligence 
sufficient  to  qualify  any  one  for  a  proper  legal  elector.  The 
claim  for  intelligent  suffrage  is  not  based  upon  prejudice  to 
a  particular  class,  race  or  nationality.  It  operates  upon  all 
alike — the  native,  the  foreigner,  the  white  and  the  black — 
and  is  conducive  to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  trust.  Com- 
munity descant  loudly  of  their  rights.  A  right  has  never 
yet  existed  not  preceded  by  a  duty ;  and  the  duty  which 
precedes  the  privilege  of  suffrage,  and  alone  transforms  it 
into  a  right,  is  education. 

The  argument  must  not  be  construed  into  a  perpetual 
political  yoke  of  bondage  for  the  blacks.  This  unfortunate 


268         THE  ISSUES    OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

portion  of  our  population  is  entitled  by  every  reason  of 
justice  and  humanity  to  the  fullest  protection  of  the  Gene- 
ral Government  in  the  immediate  right  of  citizenship  and 
the  prospective  privilege  of  the  elective  franchise.  They  are 
possessed  of  both — the  one  justly,  the  other  by  no  show  of 
reason,  except  so  far  as  exceptional  portions  of  them  are 
educated  and  thereby  entitled  thereto.  The  plea  that  the 
prior  slave  population  has  had  no  opportunity  for  education 
is  a  mere  argument  of  generosity.  The  law  of  self-preser- 
vation, in  the  case  of  governments  as  individuals,  is  para- 
mount to  all  others,  and  forbids  gratuities  at  the  expense  of 
the  public  weal. 

The  same  is  true  of  our  foreign  element.  Argument 
upon  the  time  of  probation  which  should  properly  precede 
citizenship  is  not  here  pertinent — our  laws  in  this  respect, 
however,  are  far  too  lax — but  the  door  to  suffragan  power 
should  remain  to  them  invariably  closed  till  they  are  far 
better  fitted  by  education  therefor  than  three-fourths  of  our 
present  foreign  class,  who  are  fully  endowed  with  the  elect- 
ive franchise.  The  same  also  of  our  native  whites. 

Looking  at  this  subject  in  any  light  we  may,  if  regard  is 
had  for  the  teachings  of  experience,  the  principles  of  gov- 
ernmental science  and  the  advancement  of  civilization,  the 
Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments,  so  far  as  they  affect 
the  elective  franchise,  are  anachronisms  in  our  political 
history  and  a  detriment  to  our  material  and  political  pros- 
perity. Their  sanction  was  a  grave  mistake  of  a  political 
party  whose  name  is  an  exponent  of  many  noble  deeds,  a 
power  which  piloted  the  country  safely  through  the  most 
terrible  ordeal  it  has  ever  witnessed,  and  one  which,  when 
purged  of  an  intensely  illiberal  and  party-proscribing  ele- 
ment, it  is  to  be  most  sincerely  hoped  may  long  maintain 
its  present  supremacy. 


RECONSTRUCTION.  269 


CHAPTER    II. 

RECONSTR  UCTION. 

Executive  Proclamation — Congressional  Legislation — The  Freedmen's 
Bureau — Virginia  and  Tennessee  Reconstructed — Death  of  Mr. 
Lincoln — President  Johnson's  Policy — Progress  of  State  Restora- 
tion— Congress  upon  Reconstruction  in  1866 — The  Opening  of  the 
Executive  and  Legislative  Conflict — Contest  upon  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  Bill — The  Same  reviewed — Disagreement  upon  the  Civil 
Rights  Bill — Its  Constitutionality  considered — The  Status  of  the 
late  Disloyal  States  in  this  Connection — Citizenship  considered — 
The  Civil  Rights  Bill  Unconstitutional — President  Johnson  Officially 
Declares  the  Rebellion  Concluded — Continued  Disagreement  be- 
tween the  President  and  Congress — The  Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill 
again  in  Question — The  Same  Vetoed — Neither  Party  entitled  to 
Credit — A  mere  Fight  of  Policies — The  Final  Reconstruction  Meas- 
ures of  Congress — The  Same  stated  and  fully  considered — What 
Might  have  Been — Collateral  Comment — Constitutionality  of  the 
Scheme — Vetoed  by  the  President — Legality  of  Presidents  Lincoln 
and  Johnson's  Measures — Conclusion  of  Reconstruction. 

THE  subject-matter  of  this  chapter,  for  various  reasons, 
will  be  confined  within  very  narrow  limits.  Strictly 
speaking,  the  subjects  of  the  first  four  chapters  of  the  pres- 
ent part  of  this  treatise  are  constituent  elements  of  the 
general  topic  of  Reconstruction,  and  are,  one  with  the 
other,  more  or  less  directly  connected.  For  reasons  stated 
in  the  remarks  inductive  to  this  discussion  of  our  organic 
and  municipal  code,  however,  a  separate  examination  of 
the  more  important  measures  of  reconstruction  was  therein 
announced.  The  investigation  of  the  constitutional  amend- 
ments necessarily  led  to  an  incidental  statement  of  the 
different  plans  which  were  put  into  execution  for  the  restora- 
tion of  the  South,  the  action  taken  thereunder,  and  a  some- 
what extended  criticism  of  the  same.  It  was,  in  short,  a 

23  • 


270         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

treatment  of  reconstruction  as  connected  with  the  Southern 
people  in  their  corporate  capacity  of  State  governments — the 
reorganization  of  the  Southern  States.  The  succeeding 
chapters  upon  Amnesty  and  Force  Legislation  will  embrace 
the  greater  portion  of  the  subject  of  reconstruction  as  con- 
nected with  the  Southern  people  in  their  individual  status — 
the  reinvestment  of  the  former  rebellious  masses  with  the 
duties,  privileges  and  rights  of  suffragan  citizenship.  The 
design  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  traverse  the  ground  of 
both  State  and  individual  restoration,  which  is  untouched 
by  the  first  and  next  two  succeeding  ones,  together  with  a 
mere  chronological  reference  to  the  events  which  in  these 
other  chapters  are  fully  noticed.  It  will  consequently  serve 
as  a  complete,  consecutive  narrative  of  reconstruction,  with 
a  full  discussion  thereof,  except  so  far  as  the  latter  is  ac- 
complished in  the  collateral  connections  above  named. 

The  initiatory  measure  of  reconstruction  assumed  the 
form  of  an  executive  proclamation  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Decem- 
ber 8,  1863.  This  measure  (see  Appendix)  provided  that 
when  the  people  of  any  rebellious  State  should  lay  down 
their  arms,  swear  allegiance  to  the  General  Government  and 
organize  free  State  constitutions,  etc.  etc.,  such  State  should 
be  entitled  to  its  former  position  in  the  tTnion — meaning, 
of  course,  its  representation  in  Congress. 

Between  the  date  of  this  proclamation  and  July  8,  1864, 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana  had  complied  with  the  conditions 
thereof,  the  former  under  the  supervision  of  General  Steele, 
the  latter  under  that  of  General  Banks,  officers  command- 
ing therein.  At  the  date  last  above  named  Congress  sub- 
mitted a  bill  for  the  approval  of  President  Lincoln  pro- 
posing a  plan  of  reconstruction,  whereby  the  executive 
should  assign  provisional  governors  to  all  States  in  which 
rebellion  should  be  crushed,  under  whose  control  the 
people  thereof,  having  subscribed  to  an  oath  of  allegiance, 
framed  free  constitutions,  etc.  etc.,  should  be  restored  to 


RECOXSTR  UCTION.  2/ 1 

their  original  position  as  before  the  war,  including  their 
representation  in  Congress.  The  bill  moreover  assumed 
to  abolish  slavery.  Mr.  Lincoln  withheld  his  approval 
thereto  for  reasons  already  given,  but  expressed  his  willing- 
ness in  a  proclamation  of  the  date  last  above  named  (see 
Appendix)  to  co-operate  with  any  State  wishing  to  avail 
itself  of  its  privileges. 

Subsequent  to  July  8,  1864,  and  prior  to  April  25,  1869 
— namely,  February  i,  1865 — the  Thirteenth  amendment 
had  been  submitted  to  the  States  for  ratification,  a  bureau  for 
the  relief  of  freedmen  had  been  established  the  third  of  the 
preceding  month,  and  Virginia  and  Tennessee,  the  former 
under  the  supervision  of  General  Weitzell,  the  command- 
ing officer  therein,  the  latter  under  that  of  Andrew  John- 
son, military  governor  appointed  by  the  President,  had 
complied  with  the  conditions  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclama- 
tion of  December  8,  1863.  None  of  the  four  States  here- 
inbefore mentioned,  however,  had  been  admitted  to  their 
representation  in  Congress.  At  this  juncture  Mr.  Lincoln 
died  and  Andrew  Johnson  assumed  the  duties  of  the  chief 
magistrate. 

Mr.  Johnson  determined  upon  a  policy  of  reconstruction 
very  similar  to  that  proclaimed  by  his  predecessor  Decem- 
ber 8,  1863,  with  this  difference:  Mr.  Lincoln,  Lee  not 
having  surrendered,  entrusted  the  execution  of  his  policy  to 
the  commanding  generals  and  military  governors  in  the  in- 
surrectionary States ;  his  successor,  the  war,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  having  entirely  ended,  assigned  this  task  to 
provisional  governors  appointed  from  resident  civilians. 
From  April,  1865,  to  January  i,  1868,  North  and  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama  and  Mississippi  reconstructed 
under  the  policy  of  President  Johnson,  and  the  following- 
named  measures  of  restoration  were  also  promulgated  : 

April  29,  commercial  intercourse  was  restored,  by  means 
of  executive  proclamation,  between  the  North  and  South, 


2/2         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS.   . 

excepting  a  few  districts  still  without  the  possession  of  the 
national  forces,  barring  trade  in  all  articles  contraband  of 
war. 

May  22,  in  the  same  manner,  restrictions  upon  foreign 
commerce  with  the  lately  rebellious  States  were  removed, 
excepting  the  ports  of  Galveston,  La  Salle,  Brazos  de  San- 
tiago (Point  Isabel)  and  Brownsville  in  the  State  of  Texas. 

May  29,  President  Johnson  issued  a  proclamation  of 
qualified  amnesty. 

June  13,  restrictions  upon  commercial  intercourse  with 
Tennessee  were  removed  by  executive  order. 

June  23,  blockade  raised  by  presidential  proclamation, 
except  as  to  all  ports  west  of  the  Mississippi  River. 

October  12,  the  President  suspended  the  operation  of 
martial  law  in  Kentucky. 

December  i,  executive  order  restored  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  to  all  States  and  Territories  except  the  lately  insur- 
rectionary ones,  Kentucky,  the  District  of  Columbia,  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona,  the  same  having  been  suspended  Sep- 
tember 15,  1863,  throughout  the  entire  country. 

December  18,  the  Thirteenth  amendment  was  promul- 
gated, the  States  of  Virginia,  Arkansas,  Louisiana,  Tennes- 
see, North  and  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Alabama  hav- 
ing aided  in  the  ratification  thereof;  the  first  four  having 
been  reconstructed  under  President  Lincoln's  proclamation 
of  December  8,  1863,  the  last  four  under  the  policy  of 
President  Johnson,  as  above  described. 

With  the  opening  of  the  year  1866  the  position  of  Con- 
gress upon  the  subject  of  reconstruction  is  hardly  capable 
of  definition.  It  had  not  given  an  open  protest,  so  to 
speak,  by  any  direct  legislation,  against  the  policy  which 
had  been  pursued  by  the  executive,  yet  none  of  the  lately 
insurrectionary  States,  as  restored  under  Mr.  Johnson  and 
his  predecessor,  had  been  admitted  to  their  representation 
in  that  body.  This  last  fact,  together  with  unofficial  state- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  2/3 

ments  of  Senators  and  Representatives,  gave  evidence  of 
the  legislative  and  executive  conflict  that  afterward  ensued 
upon  the  policy  of  reconstruction.  The  whole  subject  had 
been  referred  to  a  joint  committee  of  both  Houses  of  the 
national  legislature,  December  13,  1865,  whose  report 
thereon  not  only  Congress  but  the  entire  people  were 
awaiting  with  the  utmost  anxiety.  This  report,  however, 
was  delayed  till  midsummer  of  1866,  and  in  the  mean  time 
the  President  and  Congress  assumed  an  attitude  of  open 
hostility. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  March  3,  1865,  a  bureau  for 
the  protection  and  relief  of  freedmen  in  the  South  was  es- 
tablished by  the  General  Government.  As  the  measure, 
by  experience,  had  proved  somewhat  inadequate  for  the 
ends  in  view,  Congress,  in  the  early  part  of  February,  1866, 
submitted  an  act  amendatory  of  the  one  last  above  named 
for  executive  approval.  Its  main  features  consisted  in  the 
reservation  of  three  millions  of  acres  of  public  land  in  the 
South  from  the  operation  of  the  homestead  and  pre-emption 
laws  for  occupation  by  former  slaves  at  a  rental  to  be  ap- 
proved by  designated  authorities,  an  extension  of  the  former 
means  of  relief  in  the  way  of  food  and  clothing,  and  the 
punishment,  by  tribunals  composed  of  the  agents  and  officials 
of  the  bureau,  of  all  persons  who  should  violate  the  rights 
under  this  act  of  its  designated  beneficiaries.  As  the  bu- 
reau was  to  be  placed  by  this  bill  under  the  control  of  the 
executive  and  War  Department,  and  the  agents  and  offi- 
cials thereof  appointed  from  the  army,  the  court  upon  which 
the  measure  conferred  jurisdiction  for  trial  of  offences  there- 
under— to  which,  moreover,  a  criminal  penalty  was  at- 
tached— was  in  fact  a  military  tribunal,  a  purely  martial 
court. 

The  President,  chafing  under  the  non-admission  to  their 
representation  in  Congress  of  the  Southern  States  which 
under  his  policy  had  been  restored,  vetoed  the  bill  Febru- 

M  2 


2/4         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ary  19  on  various  grounds,  among  the  more  important  of 
which,  and  the  only  ones  of  particular  import,  were  that 
the  measure  violated  constitutional  guarantees  in  that  no 
person  by  our  organic  code  should  be  deprived  of  life,  lib- 
erty or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  and  that  taxa- 
tion should  never  be  imposed  without  representation.  The 
veto  message  was  temperate  and  politic  in  tone,  clear  and 
concise  in  expression,  logical  in  argument,  and  was  doubt- 
less shaped  by  the  consummate  diplomat  who  from  1861  to 
1869  presided  over  the  Department  of  State  with  an  ability 
far  greater  than  any  which  has  graced  the  position  since 
the  retirement  of  Daniel  Webster  therefrom.  As  to  the  two 
grounds  of  objection  above  stated,  they  were  not  at  least 
without  a  comparative  show  of  reason.  Although  the 
Southern  people  could  not  be  said  to  be  immediately  subject 
to  taxation  for  the  support  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  they 
were  prospectively  so  in  their  accruing  liability  to  share  in 
the  payment  of  the  public  debt  incurred  for  this  and  other 
war-purposes ;  and  granting,  moreover,  for  the  sake  of  ar- 
gument, that  they  were  not  at  this  period  entitled  to  repre- 
sentation in  Congress,  still,  they  had  complied  with  the  con- 
ditions of  the  only  policy  for  such  restoration  which  the  Gen- 
eral Government  had  then  prescribed ;  and  to  say  the  least 
it  would  have  been  eminently  fitting  for  Congress,  while 
denying  the  validity  of  such  restoration,  to  have  provided 
a  plan  whereby  the  same  might  be  effected  before  imposing 
upon  the  late  insurrectionary  States  anything  which  might 
seem  to  be  even  but  a  constructive  burden.  The  objection 
to  the  martial  courts  was  sound  and  wholesome.  The  bill 
proposed  to  establish  military  tribunals  in  a  comparatively 
peaceful  country,  and  confer  such  jurisdiction  upon  persons 
who  could  not  be  presumed  impartial  (the  agents  and  of- 
ficers of  the  bureau)  by  reason  of  their  wishes  to  see  the 
institution  maintain  its  supremacy.  The  scheme,  in  fact, 
was  like  giving  a  plaintiff  in  a  cause  a  right  to  sit  in  judg- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  2/5 

ment  thereon.  Offenders  under  the  act,  moreover,  the 
violation  thereof  having  been  declared  a  criminal  offence, 
were  certainly  entitled  to  a  trial  by  jury  instead  of  by  mere 
officers  of  war.  Such  jurisdiction  should  have  been  given 
to  regular  civil  courts,  even  though  constituted  of  non-resi- 
dent officials.  February  2ist  the  bill  was  again  put  upon 
its  passage,  but  not  obtaining  a  two-thirds  vote  in  the  Sen- 
ate, consequently  failed  to  become  a  law.  It  was  designed 
for  a  worthy  and  highly  commendable  purpose,  and,  with 
the  exceptions  above  noticed,  was  an  adequate  mean  for 
the  attainment  of  a  humane  and  philanthropic  end. 

Congress  retaliated  upon  the  executive  by  the  adoption, 
February  20,  of  the  following  resolution — namely:  "Re- 
solved, That  in  order  to  close  agitation  upon  a  question 
which  seems  likely  to  disturb  the  action  of  the  Government, 
as  well  as  to  quiet  the  uncertainty  which  is  agitating  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  the  eleven  States  which  have  been 
declared  to  be  in  insurrection,  no  Senator  or  Representa- 
tive shall  be  admitted  into  either  branch  of  Congress  from 
any  of  said  States  until  Congress  shall  have  declared  such 
States  entitled  to  such  representation." 

The  war  of  reconstruction  was  thus  fully  inaugurated,  and 
proved  a  bitter  and  long-protracted  struggle. 

The  next  battle-ground  in  the  conflict  was  that  covered 
by  the  measure  popularly  known  as  the  "Civil  Rights  Bill;" 
and  here  Congress  was  destined  to  prove  victorious.  The 
measure  was  submitted  for  the  approval  of  the  President 
about  the  middle  of  March,  1866,  vetoed  the  27th  of  the 
same  month,  and  April  Qth,  having  received  the  requisite 
two-thirds  vote  of  Congress,  was  duly  declared  a  law. 
The  bill,  reducing  it  to  simple  terms,  provides  in  the  main 
as  follows — namely  : 

First.  Declares  all  persons  born  and  naturalized  in  the 
United  States,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  to  be  citizens 
thereof,  and  gives  them  protection  in  the  usual  rights  of 


276         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

citizenship — namely,  those  of  personal  security,  personal 
liberty  and  the  right  of  property. 

The  remaining  sections  of  the  bill  merely  provide  means 
for  the  enforcement  of  the  one  just  stated.  It  is  also  ap- 
parent upon  the  face  of  the  measure  that  its  sole  design 
and  purpose  was  to  afford  the  prior  slave  population  the 
privileges  of  citizenship. 

Stating  it  very  briefly,  the  position  assumed  by  the  veto 
message  was,  that  the  bill  was  unconstitutional,  both  as  to 
the  bestowal  of  citizenship  and  its  attendant  privileges, 
and  also  as  to  the  means  provided  for  the  enforcement 
thereof.  To  put  the  question  in  the  form  of  an 'interrog- 
atory, it  amounts  to  simply  this :  Can  the  General  Gov- 
ernment confer  citizenship  beyond  that  originally  granted 
by  our  organic  law,  and  establish  means  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  its  accruing  rights  and  privileges,  except  by  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  ?  Looking  at  the  matter 
in  the  abstract,  neither  point  of  the  inquiry  is  perhaps 
entirely  clear ;  but  viewing  it  as  connected  with  the  bill 
under  consideration,  while  the  first  point  may  still  be  con- 
sidered somewhat  uncertain,  the  latter  is  beyond  a  doubt 
outside  the  pale  of  constitutional  authority.  To  the  whole 
inquiry,  moreover,  whether  generally  in  the  abstract,  or 
relatively  as  confined  within  the  scope  of  this  particular 
measure  of  Congress,  the  better  and  sounder  doctrine  is 
probably  found  in  a  negative  response.  Both  points  of  the 
question  will  be  briefly  considered  in  the  order  in  which 
they  appear  in  the  foregoing  interrogatory,  and  in  their  rela- 
tive and  abstract  connection  as  above  described.  In  pur- 
suance of  this  plan  of  discussion,  the  main  question  resolves 
itself  into  four  minor  ones — namely : 

First.  Can  the  General  Government  confer  citizenship 
and  its  attendant  rights  and  privileges  upon  the  prior  slave 
population  except  by  a  change  in  our  organic  law? 

Second.   Can  the  same  power  enlarge  the  status  of  citizen- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  2JJ 

ship,  in  a  general  sense,  either  as  to  persons  or  the  rights 
and  privileges  thereof  (citizenship)  as  it  exists  under  the 
original  Constitution,  save  by  an  amendment  thereto? 

Third.  Can  the  General  Government  establish  means  for 
the  enforcement  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship 
in  behalf  of  the  prior  slave  population  unless  such  citizen- 
ship has  been  first  decreed  by  the  Constitution  ? 

Fourth.  Can  the  same  power  provide  such  means  for  the 
enforcement  of  such  rights  unless  the  extended  limits  of 
citizenship  to  which  such  rights  and  privileges  attach  are 
first  declared  by  a  constitutional  enactment  ? 

First.  To  so  late  a  period  as  the  outbreak  of  our  late 
civil  war  (and  somewhat  later;  that  point  is  designated 
for  convenience'  sake,  on  account  of  its  prominence)  our 
Federal  charter  impliedly,  and  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  expressly,  denied  the  status,  privileges  and  rights  of 
citizenship  to  the  prior  slave  population.  By  the  letter  of 
this  instrument,  indeed,  as  interpreted  by  the  highest 
judicial  tribunal  of  the  land,  the  colored  inhabitants  of  the 
slave  States  were  considered  as  mere  "  persons,"  with  "no 
rights  which  a  white  man  was  bound  to  respect."  The 
Thirteenth  amendment  merely  transferred  these  "persons" 
from  a  state  of  slavery  to  one  of  freedom — incidentally 
converting  property  into  men — but  it  left  them  "persons" 
still.  Relatively  speaking,  they  were  as  far  from  citizenship 
as  ever.  In  view  of  the  law  of  the  land  there  was  not  a 
single  antecedent  or  immediate  element  of  citizenship 
attached  to  their  condition.  How  were  they  to  be  raised 
to  that  position?  Was  a  mere  act  of  Congress  sufficient 
for  the  attainment  of  that  end  ?  In  what  direction  and 
with  what  effect  does  such  an  act  of  Congress  operate  ?  An 
answer  to  the  last  interrogatory  solves  the  immediate  sub- 
ject of  investigation.  Such  an  act  operates  to  regulate  the 
internal  domestic  relations  of  several  States  of  the  Union, 
and  precludes  the  governments  of  such  States  from  any 
24 


278          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

control  over  the  matter  whatever.  Has  the  General  Gov- 
ernment a  legal  right  to  enforce  a  measure  eventuating  in 
such  results  ?  Seemingly  not.  The  authority  of  the  United 
States  is  measured  by  the  provisions  of  our  organic  law, 
and  when  it  seeks  to  enforce  its  legislation  in  respect  to 
the  internal  domestic  relations  of  the  States,  it  must  con- 
fine itself  within  the  constitutional  power  leading  in  that 
direction.  What  is  that  power?  With  the  exception  of 
authority  to  legislate  in  reference  to  forts,  armories,  dock- 
yards, etc.,  located  in  State  territory,  the  only  power  of 
this  character  is  found  in  the  clause  of  the  Constitution 
which  declares  that  "the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to 
every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican  government. ' '  Now, 
unless  the  investment  of  the  Southern  blacks  with  the 
status,  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship  was  necessary  to 
guarantee  to  that  section  of  the  country  a  government  re- 
publican in  form,  the  measure  of  Congress  elevating  our 
prior  slave  element  to  that  position  apparently  looks  in 
vain  to  the  Constitution  for  support ;  for,  in  the  words  of 
an  eminent  jurist,  "a  republican  form  of  government  is  one 
which  derives  all  powers  directly  or  indirectly  from  the 
people,  and  administered  by  officers  for  a  limited  period 
or  good  behavior."  Congress  and  the  executive  constitute 
the  tribunal  to  decide  as  to  what  government  is  republican 
in  form,  it  is  true,  but  Congress  did  not  declare  the  civil 
rights  bill  a  measure  necessary  for  that  purpose. 

The  point  is  raised  in  this  connection  that  the  rebellious 
States  forfeited  all  their  rights  under  the  Constitution  ;  there- 
fore Congress  may  legislate  in  respect  to  them  as  it  sees  fit. 
The  proposition  invokes  the  statement  of  principles  which 
have  been  proved  in  a  prior  part  of  this  discussion — 
namely :  This  Government  is  a  unit,  and  not  a  State  league. 
It  cannot  be  diminished,  dissolved  or  destroyed  except  by 
absolute  force,  by  revolution.  The  point  at  which,  by  this 
means,  this  Government  becomes  dissolved,  destroyed,  is 


RECONSTRUCTION.  279 

that  where  a  rebellious  faction  has  conquered  for  itself  such 
a  position  that  the  national  authorities  recognize  and  grant 
its  independence.  This  point  was  not  reached  by  the 
Southern  States ;  consequently,  all  measures  which  were 
designed  to  regulate  their  internal  relations  required  adop- 
tion in  the  usual  manner — that  is,  by  constitutional  amend- 
ment instead  of  an  act  of  Congress.  To  admit  the  claim 
just  stated  would  be  an  acknowledgment  of  the  legality 
and  right  of  secession,  which  is  itself  refuted  in  the  prin- 
ciples above  announced,  and  explained  in  full  in  a  prior 
connection. 

The  ends  sought  by  the  civil  rights  bill  and  the  Thir- 
teenth amendment,  in  fact,  so  far  as  the  means  requisite  for 
their  procurement  were  concerned,  were  perfectly  parallel. 
They  both  sought  to  regulate  the  internal  relations  of  the 
Southern  States ;  and  if  a  constitutional  amendment  was 
necessary  to  effect  one,  so  was  it  the  other.  The  General 
Government  might  as  properly  attempt  to  abolish  slavery 
by  mere  legislation  as  to  invest  the  former  victims  thereof 
with  citizenship  and  its  rights  and  privileges.  It  did,  in 
fact,  attempt  this,  as  will  be  remembered,  in  its  reconstruc- 
tion measure  of  July  8,  1864  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  grave  and 
appropriate  doubt  of  the  legality  and  validity  of  the  scheme, 
as  expressed  in  his  proclamation  of  that  date,  already 
stated,  was  one  of  the  reasons  for  the  refusal  of  his  approval 
thereof. 

Second.  As  to  the  extension  of  the  status,  rights  and 
privileges  of  citizenship  in  general,  in  the  abstract,  as  they 
exist  under  our  original  organic  law.  Prior  to  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  citizenship,  under  the 
Constitution,  attached  solely  to  our  free  native  and  natur- 
alized population.  The  ground  covered  was  very  broad. 
With  a  qualifying  remark  in  respect  to  the  probation 
required  at  the  hands  of  foreigners,  it  included  all  per- 
sons except  our  slave  and  savage  element.  Over  the  sub- 


280         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ject  of  naturalization  Congress,  under  the  Constitution, 
has  the  exclusive  oversight  and  control.  As  to  what  shall 
constitute  citizenship  of  the  United  States,  moreover,  the 
authority  of  the  General  Government  is  likewise  supreme 
and  exclusive.  There  is  in  this  connection,  however,  a 
collateral  point  which  demands  attention.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  authority  of  the  General  Government  as  to  what 
shall  make  persons  citizens  is  sole  and  undivided,  still,  each 
State,  under  the  Constitution,  has  an  authority  equally 
undoubted  to  define  the  position  of  persons  within  its  juris- 
diction before  they  become  citizens,  as  it  may  deem  most 
proper  and  advantageous.  For  instance,  it  may  deny  them 
the  right  to  hold  property,  sue  and  be  sued,  etc.,  and 
the  General  Government  is  powerless  to  interfere.  Now, 
although  Congress,  by  means  of  an  express  power  of  the 
Constitution,  can  set  the  will  of  the  States  at  defiance  in 
this  direction  as  to  foreigners,  yet  when  the  General  Gov- 
ernment assumes  to  extend  the  status  and  rights  of  citizen- 
ship beyond  the  limits  thereof,  as  found  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, in  respect  to  uncitizenized  natives,  if  we  may  use  the 
expression,  it  seeks  to  enforce  its  will  as  to  the  internal 
relations  of  the  States  in  a  manner  which,  as  has  before 
appeared,  seems  to  be  authorized  only  by  means  of  a 
change  in  our  organic  law.  The  point  is  not  of  much 
practical  importance,  as  the  limits  of  citizenship  in  respect 
to  our  native  population,  either  as  to  persons  or  its  attend- 
ant privileges,  are  hardly  admissible  of  farther  extension 
in  any  direction  whatever. 

The  affirmation  or  negation  of  the  third  and  fourth  minor 
interrogatories  stated  in  the  outset  of  this  discussion  hinges 
entirely  upon  the  disposition  of  the  two  preceding  ones. 
If  the  General  Government  cannot  bestow  citizenship, 
either  relatively  or  in  the  abstract,  except  by  constitutional 
amendment,  it  cannot  provide  means  for  the  enforcement 


RECONSTRUCTION.  28 1 

of  the  rights  and  privileges  thereof  except  in  pursuance 
of  such  changes  in  our  organic  law. 

Considering  the  matter  candidly  and  dispassionately,  the 
veto  of  the  civil  rights  bill  of  March,  1866,  by  President 
Johnson,  was  perfectly  sound  and  wholesome,  and  in  no 
sense  a  violation  of  his  duties  as  chief  executive  of  the 
United  States.  Congress  itself  has  made  a  tacit  admission 
of  the  same  in  its  proposal  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment 
to  the  States  for  ratification.  The  first  section  of  that 
article  is  but  a  reiteration,  in  substance,  of  the  abstract 
principles  of  the  civil  rights  bill,  and  aims  to,  and  does, 
accomplish  the  same  noble,  humane  and  in  every  way  com- 
mendable end  which  the  last-named  measure  unwarrantably 
essayed  to  effect. 

To  resume  the  main  narrative.  In  the  interim  between 
the  submission  of  the  civil  rights  bill  to  the  executive  for 
his  approval,  and  his  veto  of  the  same — namely,  April  2, 
1866 — that  official  issued  a  proclamation  declaring  the  late 
rebellion,  in  all  the  States  excepting  Texas,  entirely  con- 
cluded. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  December  13,  1865,  Con- 
gress referred  the  matter  of  reconstruction  to  a  joint  com- 
mittee of  both  Houses  to  take  action  thereon.  June,  1866, 
the  committee  returned  a  majority  and  minority  report 
neither  of  which  demands  an  extended  consideration  in 
this  connection,  as  the  ultimate  will  of  Congress  in  refer- 
ence to  reconstruction  was  not  expressed  till  the  passage 
of  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  and  the  ground  covered  by 
the  reports,  moreover,  has  been  mostly  traversed  in  a  prior 
part  of  this  discussion.  The  points  thereof  which  have 
not  received  such  attention  will  be  submitted  to  an  in- 
cidental consideration  farther  on.  A  glaring  inconsistency 
in  each  report,  however,  provokes  an  immediate  allu- 
sion. The  majority  report  dwells  at  length  and  with  great 
emphasis  upon  the  alleged  fact  that  the  lately  rebellious 
24  • 


282         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

States  are  without  any  legitimate  form  of  government, 
totally  disorganized,  and  yet,  at  a  period  earlier  than  the 
date  of  this  report  by  nearly  a  year,  these  same  States  had 
aided  in  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  and 
such  action  had  been  deemed  entirely  valid  by  Congress.  The 
minority  report  insists  upon  the  dogma  of  secession  as  a 
constitutional  right,  and  in  almost  the  next  paragraph  sur- 
prises if  not  insults  the  intelligence  of  the  reader  with  the 
claim  that  the  lately  rebellious  States  are  integral  parts  of 
the  Union,  notwithstanding  for  four  years  they  had  ex- 
hausted every  resource  in  maintaining  the  dogma  above 
named.  That  they  were  integral  parts  of  the  Union  has 
been  shown  in  our  discussion  of  the  legality  of  the  ratifica- 
tion of  the  constitutional  amendments,  and  recently  asserted 
when  the  civil  rights  bill  formed  the  subject  of  considera- 
tion. In  the  proof  of  this  fact,  however,  secession  finds 
death,  and  not  life,  as  maintained  by  the  minority  report 
of  the  committee  on  reconstruction.  The  two  principles 
are  perfectly  antithetic,  antagonistic  in  character,  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  one  is  the  refutation  of  the  other. 

The  remaining  narrative  of  reconstruction  for  the  year 
1866  is  barren  in  events  of  any  special  importance  which 
have  not  already  been  properly  alluded  to.  June  16  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  was  proposed  by  Congress  for  rati- 
fication, and  the  next  collision  between  the  executive  and 
legislative  departments,  subsequent  to  the  one  upon  civil 
rights  for  the  blacks,  occurred  in  respect  to  the  third  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  bill  on  the  i6th  of  the  following  month. 
The  original  Freedmen's  Bureau  bill  of  March  3,  1865, 
which  received  the  approval  of  President  Lincoln,  and 
thereby  became  a  law,  had  none  of  the  objectionable  fea- 
tures of  the  bill  amendatory  thereof  which  was  vetoed  by 
President  Johnson  March  27,  1866.  Even  the  plea  of  a 
constructive  taxation  of  the  South  without  representation 
could  not  be  urged  against  the  original  measure,  as  the  re- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  283 

bellious  faction  was  at  that  period  in  a  position  of  open 
hostility  to  the  General  Government,  the  result  of  the 
struggle  was  still  enveloped  with  doubt,  and  the  so-called 
Confederate  States  could  not  be  said,  either  actually  or 
prospect ively,  to  be  subject  to  the  levies  of  the  national 
authority.  The  last-named  power,  moreover,  was  under 
every  obligation  of  justice  and  honor  to  protect  the  unfor- 
tunate freedmen,  whom  both  by  executive  and  legislative 
action  it  had  arrayed  against  the  forces  of  the  rebellion. 
This  original  bill  simply  aimed  to  give  the  freedmen  food 
and  clothing,  and  to  locate  them  upon  the  abandoned  and 
confiscated  lands  of  the  insurrectionary  States.  It  was  de- 
fective in  that  it  provided  no  tribunal  before  which  violators 
of  the  law  could  be  brought  for  trial.  The  bill  vetoed  by 
President  Johnson  March  27,  1866,  was  designed  mainly 
to  heal  this  defect,  and  essayed  to  accomplish  that  end  by 
the  establishment  of  military  tribunals  constituted  of  the 
agents  and  officers  of  the  bureau — military  men,  and  not 
civilians,  and  only  responsible  to  the  Secretary  of  War. 
Offences  against  the  bill,  moreover,  were  thereby  declared 
criminal,  and  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  was  denied.  This 
was  the  principal  ground  of  the  veto  message  refusing  the 
executive  approval,  and  was  wise,  tenable  and  sound.  The 
intention  of  Congress  to  amend  the  original  law  by  estab- 
lishing courts  to  enforce  its  provisions  was  commendable 
and  proper,  but  giving  military  courts  jurisdiction  in  the 
premises,  and  denying  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  to  persons 
charged  with  a  criminal  offence,  was  not  only  impolitic, 
but  clearly  illegal.  The  late  war  was  entirely  concluded. 
The  action  of  the  legislatures  of  the  States  wherein  these  mar- 
tial courts  were  established  had  been  accepted  by  Congress  for 
the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  amendment,  and  the  pro- 
posed further  continuance  of  courts-martial  in  the  room  of 
civil  tribunals  was  unnecessary  and  in  direct  violation  of 
our  organic  law. 


284         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

The  third  Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  of  July,  1866,  was 
another  attempt  to  amend  the  original  law  of  March  3, 
1865,  as  to  juridical  measures  for  the  enforcement  thereof, 
and  to  perfect  the  distribution  of  the  abandoned  and  con- 
fiscated lands  of  the  South  among  the  blacks.  It  was  much 
milder  in  form  than  the  one  vetoed  in  February  of  the  same 
year,  as  it  did  not  make  violations  of  the  proposed  law  a 
criminal  offence.  It  proposed  to  give  jurisdiction  of  such 
violations,  however,  to  military  tribunals,  made  up  of  the 
agents  and  officers  of  the  bureau,  until  the  Southern  States 
had  been  restored  to  their  representation  in  Congress.  This 
was  the  only  vulnerable  point  in  this  humane  and  necessary 
measure  of  legislation.  There  was  no  necessity  for  giving 
the  bureau  both  ministerial  and  judicial  powers.  It  was 
a  grave  inconsistency.  It  placed  an  offender  in  the  hands 
of  the  offended  for  trial,  judgment,  and  the  execution  thereof. 
It  was  a  much  graver  inconsistency,  moreover,  to  establish 
military  courts  in  States  until  they  should  "be  duly  rep- 
resented in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,"  when  such 
States  had  complied  with  the  only  conditions  for  such  rep- 
resentation which  the  Government  had  announced — Con- 
gress not  having  passed  any  reconstruction  measure — and 
when  the  legislative  action  of  such  States  had  been  ac- 
cepted for  the  sanction  of  a  change  in  our  organic  law. 

July  1 6,  1866,  the  President  vetoed  the  bill  as  a  matter  of 
course.  He  could  have  pursued  no  other  action  without 
self-contradiction.  Congress,  moreover,  could  not  have 
reasonably  expected  a  different  result.  It  framed  the  bill 
not  with  an  eye  for  executive  approval,  but  with  regard  to 
its  ability  to  pass  it  over  the  disapproval  of  that  official, 
which  it  did  on  the  same  day  the  veto  message  was  received, 
thereby  making  it  a  law  of  the  land. 

In  this  immediate  connection,  saving  the  criticism  as  to 
the  Congressional  military  courts  hereinbefore  given,  and 
the  matter  of  representation  in  Congress,  no  especial  blame 


RECONSTRUCTION.  285 

or  credit  attaches  to  either  that  body  or  the  executive.  It 
was  a  mere  fight  of  "policies,"  and  Congress  proved  the 
strongest  party  in  the  conflict.  History  has  fully  shown 
that  the  bestowal  of  juridical  power  upon  the  agents  and 
officers  of  the  bureau  was  an  unwise  and  impolitic  measure. 
By  reason  thereof  its  administration  has  been  made  the  ve- 
hicle of  many  corrupt  and  unlawful  transactions,  whereby 
private  pecuniary  aims  were  served  and  the  public  interests 
subverted. 

July  25,  1866,  Tennessee,  having  ratified  the  Fourteenth 
amendment,  was  admitted  to  her  representation  in  Congress. 

August  20,  1866,  the  President  issued  a  proclamation  de- 
claring the  rebellion  at  an  end  in  the  State  of  Texas,  and 
civil  authority  fully  restored  throughout  the  entire  country. 

December  3,  1866,  the  following  section  of  the  act  of 
July  17,  1862,  was  repealed,  in  order  to  bar  anticipated 
proclamations  of  pardon  for  the  late  rebels  by  the  execu- 
tive. The  repealing  bill  became  a  law  by  reason  of  the 
failure  of  the  President  to  sign  or  return  it  with  his  objec- 
tions within  ten  days  after  the  same  was  submitted  to  him 
for  approval : 

"That  the  President  is  hereby  authorized  at  any  time 
hereafter,  by  proclamation,  to  extend  to  persons  who  may 
have  participated  in  the  existing  rebellion,  in  any  State  or 
part  thereof,  pardon  and  amnesty,  with  such  exceptions, 
and  at  such  time  and  on  such  conditions,  as  he  may  deem 
expedient  for  the  public  welfare." 

During  this  year,  1866,  moreover,  Florida  and  Texas,  the 
only  remaining  insurrectionary  States  which  had  not  recon- 
structed under  President  Johnson's  policy,  complied  with 
the  conditions  of  the  same  and  awaited  the  admission  of 
their  representation  to  Congress. 

The  first  reconstruction  measure  of  any  importance  in 
1867  was  the  act  of  March  2d  of  that  year  whereby  Con- 
gress declared  its  policy  in  reference  to  the  restoration  of 


286         THE  JSSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  South.  It  is  thus  seen  that  very  nearly  two  years  had 
elapsed  since  the  surrender  of  Lee  before  our  legislative  de- 
partment pointed  a  way  to  the  lately  insurrectionary  States 
whereby  they  could  resume  their  original  positions  in  the 
Union,  including  the  privilege  of  participating  in  the  leg- 
islation of  the  General  Government.  The  principal  provi- 
sions of  the  act  received  an  incidental  statement  in  our  dis- 
cussion of  the  constitutional  amendments.  Asserting  in  the 
outset  that  no  legal  governments  or  protection  for  life  or 
property  exist  in  the  lately  rebellious  States,  excepting  Ten- 
nessee, it  consigns  them  to  military  rule,  directs  the  Presi- 
dent to  appoint  commanders  for  the  districts  into  which 
said  States  are  divided,  with  full  power  to  organize  mar- 
tial courts  in  lieu  of  the  regular  civil  tribunals  in  case  ex- 
isting circumstances  should  so  require.  The  bill  further 
provides,  that  when  the  States  above  named  shall  have 
ratified  the  proposed  Fourteenth 'amendment,  and  estab- 
lished free  constitutions  which  shall  meet  the  approval  of 
Congress  and  not  conflict  with  that  of  the  United  States, 
they  shall  be  entitled  to  resume  their  original  status  with 
the  General  Government  as  before  the  war,  and  their  Sena- 
tors and  Representatives  allowed  their  seats  in  the  national 
legislature.  The  minor  points  of  the  act  do  not  require 
particular  mention. 

The  act,  so  far  as  it  went,  essayed  a  plain,  appropriate, 
sensible  plan  of  reconstruction,  and  had  it  been  framed 
and  promulgated  two  years  earlier,  or  even  directly  after 
the  assembling  of  Congress  in  the  winter  of  1865-66,  not 
a  word  of  objection  could  have  been  offered  thereto  except 
for  its  incompleteness.  Simple  in  its  terms,  direct  in  its 
intended  application,  its  comparative  necessity  since  the 
summer  of  1865  perfectly  apparent  to  every  intelligent 
citizen,  its  provisions  would  seemingly  have  been  the  result 
of  an  hour's  conference  of  any  deliberative  body  of  ordi- 
nary capacity  at  any  time  subsequent  to  Lee's  surrender; 


RECONSTRUCTION.  287 

substituting,  perhaps,  civil  for  military  forms  of  provisional 
government.  Thus  much  in  commendation  of  the  act. 
No  credit  for  even  ordinary  wisdom,  however,  attaches  to 
its  invention,  and  the  entire  scheme  is  to  be  regarded  with 
the  following  important  qualifications.  The  act  asserts 
that  there  are  no  legal  governments  in  ten  of  the  lately 
rebellious  States.  Neither  admitting  nor  denying  the  claim 
in  this  connection,  the  question  is  pertinent,  If  not,  why 
not  ?  For  the  simple  reason  that  Congress  by  its  inaction 
had  prevented  the  formation  of  governments  in  these  States 
which,  in  its  opinion,  would  be  of  a  legal  character.  This 
same  legislative  body,  however,  had  considered  these  illegal 
governments  sufficiently  legal  to  give  a  valid  ratification  of 
the  Thirteenth  amendment.  The  act,  moreover,  declares 
that  there  is  no  adequate  protection  for  life  or  property  in 
these  States.  Partially  true.  But  why?  Merely  because 
the  non-committal  attitude  of  Congress  had  enveloped  the 
entire  situation  at  the  South  with  doubt  and  uncertainty. 
The  act  imposes  military  governments  upon  the  people  of 
the  ten  States  before  named.  For  good  reasons?  With  a 
show  thereof,  for  the  incongruous  masses  were  in  a  normal 
condition  of  revolt,  owing  entirely,  however,  to  the  absence 
of  a  firm,  settled  policy  on  the  part  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment. But  this  act,  in  its  essential  features,  could  have 
been  passed  over  the  President's  veto  in  1865  as  well  as  in 
1867.  Why  was  it  not  done?  Solely  for  the  reason  that 
Congress  was  trusting  to  fortune.  If  at  the  opening  of  the 
year  1867  the  Southern  States  had  ratified  the  proposed 
Fourteenth  amendment,  which  had  been  submitted  in  June, 
1866,  instead  of  rejecting  it,  the  act  of  March  2,  1867, 
would  never  have  been  devised.  When  Congress  assembled 
in  December,  1865,  it  did  so  with  the  intention  of  making 
the  enfranchisement  of  the  blacks  a  sine  qua  non  for  the  ad- 
mission of  a  Southern  delegation  to  Congress.  For  the 
attainment  of  this  end  it  proposed  the  Fourteenth  amend- 


288          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ment,  which  essayed  to  effect  such  enfranchisement  in  a 
negative  form  by  imposing  penalties  for  the  denial  of  the 
same.  This  amendment  was  not  sanctioned  by  the  ten 
States  before  named ;  hence  the  act  now  under  considera- 
tion, compelling  them  to  perform  what  the  threat  of  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  failed  to  accomplish.  The  claim  is 
by  no  means  intended  in  this  connection  that  the  General 
Government  had  no  right  to  demand  the  performance  of 
such  conditions  precedent  from  these  States  as  it  saw  fit  as 
a  requisite  for  their  restoration.  It  had  the  undoubted 
right  so  to  do ;  but  instead  of  prospecting  about  from 
April,  1865,  to  March,  1867,  inflicting  almost  immeasurable 
injury  upon  the  commerce  and  industries  of  the  country, 
Congress  should  have  squarely  met  the  issue  at  least  as 
early  as  the  winter  of  1865-66,  and,  if  it  could  not  have 
agreed  upon  intelligent  suffrage,  incorporated  the  substance 
of  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments 
into  one  article  of  organic  law,  barring  the  prescriptive 
provision,  submitted  it  to  the  States  for  ratification,  with  a 
reconstruction  measure  saying  to  the  lately  insurrectionary 
section,  "Your  people,  without  exception,  are  granted  full 
and  complete  amnesty ;  ratify  the  proposed  amendment  to 
the  national  charter,  establish  free  constitutions  and  govern- 
ments within  your  territory,  and  then,  but  not  till  then, 
resume  your  original  position  as  integral  States  of  the 
Union."  The  next  succeeding  session  of  Congress  would 
have  witnessed  the  full  consummation  of  such  a  plan  of 
restoration,  the  recomposition  of  elements  still  violently 
discordant,  and  a  general  revival  of  commercial  and  indus- 
trial pursuits. 

The  President,  as  was  fully  anticipated  by  Congress, 
vetoed  the  bill  March  2,  1867.  The  principal  ground  of 
his  message  expressing  his  disapproval  of  the  scheme  con- 
sisted in  the  assumption  that  the  imposition  of  military 
governments  upon  the  ten  States  named  in  the  bill  was  a 


RECONSTRUCTION.  289 

violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Probably 
not.  It  may  have  been  impolitic — the  legislative  record  which 
preceded  and  finally  induced  it  was  certainly  slovenly  in  the 
extreme,  and  the  measure  itself,  considering  the  time  which 
had  elapsed  between  the  close  of  the  war  and  its  adoption, 
was  a  grave  and  dilatory  assumption  of  a  power  which  lies 
at  the  extreme  outpost  of  constitutional  warrant — but  the 
taint  of  illegality  laid  to  its  charge  the  veto  message  of  the 
executive  does  not  conclusively  prove.  The  constitution- 
ality of  the  act  is  based  upon  that  power  of  our  organic 
law  which  declares  that  the  United  States  shall  guarantee 
to  every  State  in  the  Union  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment. The  warrant  which  this  power  gives  for  the  act  of 
March  2,  1867,  may  be  seen  by  a  mere  statement  of  princi- 
ples which  were  fully  discussed  and  proven  in  the  next  pre- 
ceding chapter.  The  power  above  named  is  of  a  twofold 
character — discretionary  or  judicial,  and  ministerial; 
namely,  the  United  States  shall  decide  what  governments 
are  republican  in  form,  and  upon  such  decision  shall  see 
that  they  are  guaranteed.  In  its  ministerial  aspect  the 
President,  in  case  of  invasion  or  immediate  danger,  by 
reason  of  his  prerogative  as  commander-in-chief  of  the 
army  and  navy,  can  exercise  this  power  without  authority 
from  any  other  branch  of  government.  In  its  judicial  or 
discretionary  aspect,  however,  the  Supreme  Court  has  de- 
cided that  the  right  to  its  exercise  is  jointly  vested  in  Con- 
gress and  the  executive.  That  is,  the  President  and  Con- 
gress constitute  the  tribunal  which  is  to  decide  what  govern- 
ments are  republican  in  form.  This  tribunal  is  of  a  politi- 
cal character.  It  acts  under  political  and  not  judicial  rules 
and  precedents.  These  rules  and  precedents  consist  in  the 
enactment  of  laws  by  Congress  and  the  enforcement  thereof 
by  the  executive.  In  other  words,  the  manner  in  which 
this  political  tribunal  declares  its  judgment  is  by  the 
enforcement  of  legalized  legislation.  The  Constitution 

25  X 


2QO          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

has  defined  two  methods  therefor:  First,  legislation  shall 
be  legalized  by  the  approval  thereof  of  the  executive,  or  by 
its  receiving  a  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress  against  his  dis- 
approval. When  legalized  in  either  of  the  above  forms, 
the  President,  by  his  official  oath,  is  bound  to  enforce  it. 
The  regularly-constituted  tribunal  therefor,  the  President 
and  Congress,  held  the  governments  of  the  ten  States 
named  in  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  to  be  non-republican  in 
form  in  one  of  the  two  legal  and  proper  methods — namely, 
the  one  last  above  described  ;  and,  not  to  recur  to  this  sub- 
ject again,  the  reconstruction  of  the  States  under  the  act 
above  named  was,  like  the  act  itself,  perfectly  legitimate. 
The  political  tribunal  above  described  has  an  undoubted 
constitutional  power  to  hold  the  government  of  any  State 
non-republican,  however  wrong  may  be  its  decision ;  and 
when  so  held  in  either  of  the  two  constitutional  methods 
above  described — namely,  legislation  legalized  by  the  ap- 
proval of  the  executive,  or  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress 
against  his  disapproval — and  the  same  is  enforced  by  the 
chief  magistrate,  as  by  his  official  oath  he  is  bound  to  do, 
every  step  of  the  process,  though  barely  is  still  fully  within 
the  pale  of  our  constitutional  law.  All  this  occurred  in 
reference  to  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  and  the  proceedings 
thereunder,  and  the  legality  of  both  is  not  susceptible  of 
just  accusation. 

The  President,  in  view  of  his  prior  official  course,  might 
very  properly  have  vetoed  the  bill  as  a  rashly  impolitic 
scheme,  but  not  on  the  ground  of  its  violation  of  our  or- 
ganic law. 

As  to  the  propriety,  policy  and  desirability  of  the  act, 
generally  speaking,  little  need  be  said  in  addition  to  what 
has  already  inferentially  appeared.  The  exigencies  of  the 
moment  demanded  some  such  decisive  measure,  but  these 
exigencies  had  their  origin  in  the  inability  or  unwillingness 
of  Congress  to  appreciate  the  true  situation  at  the  proper  time. 


RECONSTR  UCTION.  29 1 

The  then  disturbed  and  incongruous  condition  of  affairs  at 
the  South  was  the  legitimate  offspring  of  the  inactive  policy 
of  our  legislative  department.  It  possessed  the  constitu- 
tional power  to  reconstruct  the  lately  insurrectionary  States 
in  accordance  with  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  at  any  time 
subsequent  to  the  cessation  of  hostilities  therein,  and  at 
this  long-deferred  period  probably  no  more  efficient  or 
suitable  scheme  could  have  been  resorted  to ;  but  at  an  ear- 
lier date  the  ends  achieved  by  the  act  above  named  might, 
in  all  probability,  have  been  secured  in  pursuance  of  a 
policy  similar  to  that  initiated  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  pur- 
sued in  all  important  respects  by  his  successor — namely,  a 
policy  of  reconstruction  under  civil  local  authority,  with  full 
protection,  military  if  necessary,  to  all  classes  of  people,  of 
whatever  race,  creed  or  political  belief  .  With  universal  am- 
nesty such  ends  might  certainly  have  been  obtained. 

The  bill  was  passed  over  the  President's  veto  on  the  day 
of  the  announcement  thereof  to  Congress  (March  2,  1867). 

A  word  is  pertinent  in  this  connection  as  to  whether  the 
reconstruction  of  the  lately  insurrectionary  States  by  Presi- 
dents Lincoln  and  Johnson,  without  a  subsequent  approval  of 
Congress,  was  legitimate — whether,  by  force  of  such  recon- 
struction, their  original  status  with  the  General  Government, 
as  before  the  war,  was  duly  resumed.  It  was  not.  The 
twofold  constitutional  power,  hereinbefore  discussed,  for 
the  restoration  of  States  to  republican  forms  of  government, 
the  executive  can  exercise  only  in  its  ministerial  aspect. 
With  its  judicial  discretionary  bearings  the  President,  ex- 
clusive of  Congress,  has  nothing  to  do  whatever.  With 
Congress,  in  this  direction,  the  President  can  act,  and 
either  with  or  without  this  official,  as  already  stated,  in  the 
two  legal  methods  defined  by  the  Constitution — that  is, 
legislation  legalized  by  the  approval  of  the  executive,  or  a 
two-thirds  vote  against  his  disapproval — the  will  of  Con- 
gress is  alone  supreme. 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

March  11,12  and  15,  the  President  assigned  commanders 
to  the  military  districts  composed  of  the  lately  insurrec- 
tionary States,  in  pursuance  of  the  Congressional  plan  of 
reconstruction,  as  follows : 

First  District. — State  of  Virginia,  Brevet  Major-General 
J.  M.  Schofield ;  head-quarters,  Richmond,  Virginia. 

Second  District. — North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina, 
Major-General  D.  E.  Sickles;  head-quarters,  Columbia, 
South  Carolina. 

Third  District. — Georgia,  Florida  and  Alabama,  Major- 
General  G.  H.  Thomas ;  head -quarters,  Montgomery,  Ala- 
bama. 

Fourth  District. — Mississippi  and  Arkansas,  Brevet  Major- 
General  E.  O.  C.  Ord;  head-quarters,  Vicksburg,  Missis- 
sippi. 

Fifth  District. — Louisiana  and  Texas,  Major-General  P. 
H.  Sheridan  ;  head-quarters,  New  Orleans,  Louisiana. 

The  act  of  March  2,  1867,  contained  no  provisions  as  to 
the  manner  of  its  enforcement.  A  supplemental  measure 
for  this  purpose  was  submitted  to  the  President,  vetoed  the 
23d  of  the  same  month,  and  adopted  over  the  veto  on  the 
same  day. 

March  30,  1867,  the  President  approved  a  joint  resolu- 
tion limiting  the  amount  of  money  to  be  paid  from  the 
Treasury  for  the  purposes  of  reconstruction  to  the  sum  of 
$500,000. 

The  district  commanders  above  named,  in  pursuance  of 
their  duties  as  designated  by  the  reconstruction  acts  of 
Congress,  removed  the  civil  officials  of  the  States  elected 
under  President  Johnson's  reconstruction  policy  in  cases 
where  they  refused  to  acknowledge  the  paramount  authority 
of  these  officers.  This  conflict  of  civil  and  military  rule 
induced  a  further  measure  of  reconstruction,  vesting  the 
power  of  removal  in  cases  as  above  intimated  in  the  dis- 
trict commanders,  subject  to  the  disapproval  of  the  general 


RECONSTRUCTION.  293 

of  the  army,  and  in  the  last-named  officer  unqualifiedly, 
and  construed  certain  portions  of  the  former  acts  to  which 
this  was  supplemental.  In  other  respects  it  is  not  import- 
ant. The  bill  was  submitted  to  the  executive  for  approval 
in  July,  1867,  vetoed,  and  adopted  by  Congress  over  such 
veto,  on  the  ipth  of  the  same  month. 

The  examination  of  the  subject  of  the  present  chapter  is 
now  brought  to  a  point  beyond  which  little  is  required  save 
a  mere  chronological  statement  of  events  which  were  con- 
sequent to  the  reconstruction  policy  of  Congress. 

September  7,  1867,  the  President  extended  the  classes 
of  beneficiaries  of  his  amnesty  proclamation  of  May  29, 
1865. 

March  n,  1868,  an  amendatory  reconstruction  measure 
was  passed  over  the  executive  veto,  regulating  the  matter  of 
elections  under  the  original  act. 

June  22,  1868,  Arkansas  having  complied  with  the  re- 
quirements of  Congress,  provision  was  made  for  her  resto- 
ration to  the  Union,  allowing  her  Senators  and  Represent- 
atives seats  in  the  national  legislature.  The  declaratory 
bill  was  passed  over  the  executive  veto,  and  needs  no 
special  examination. 

July  21,  1868,  Congress  passed  a  joint  resolution  declar- 
ing the  proposed  Fourteenth  amendment  an  integral  part 
of  our  organic  law,  and  on  the  28th  of  the  same  month 
the  same  was  duly  promulgated  by  the  State  Department. 

June  25,  1868,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Louis- 
iana, Georgia,  Alabama  and  Florida  were,  for  the  same 
reasons,  placed  upon  the  same  footing  with  Arkansas,  with 
a  single  qualification  as  to  Georgia. 

July  4,  1868,  President  Johnson  proclaimed  a  general 
amnesty  for  all  participants  in  the  late  rebellion,  with  cer- 
tain exceptions  as  to  crime,  and  December  25th  of  the 
year,  in  the  same  manner,  made  this  amnesty  universal  and 
unqualified.  The  question  of  the  legality  of  these  various 

25* 


294  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

amnesty  proclamations  of  Mr.  Johnson  will  be  considered 
in  the  next  succeeding  chapter. 

February  27,  1869,  the  proposed  Fifteenth  amendment 
was  submitted  to  the  States  for  ratification. 

The  next  measure  of  reconstruction  requiring  record 
dates  subsequent  to  the  inauguration  of  President  Grant — 
namely,  April  10,  1869.  At  this  time,  by  an  act  of  Con- 
gress bearing  executive  approval,  the  President  was  author- 
ized to  submit  the  newly-formed  constitutions  of  Virginia, 
Mississippi  and  Texas  to  the  people  of  those  States  for 
ratification. 

On  December  22d  of  the  same  year  further  means  were 
provided  for  the  restoration  of  Georgia. 

January  26,  1870,  an  act  of  Congress  was  approved  by 
the  executive  restoring  Virginia  to  her  original  status  with 
the  General  Government,  and  giving  her  a  representation 
in  the  national  legislature. 

On  February  23d  and  March  3oth  of  the  same  year  simi- 
lar action  was  taken  in  reference  to  Mississippi  and  Texas, 
respectively. 

March  30,  1870,  the  Fifteenth  amendment  was  promul- 
gated, and  President  Grant  forwarded  a  special  message  to 
Congress  thereon. 

May  27,  1870,  an  act  was  adopted  providing  for  the 
enforcement  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Articles  of 
the  Constitution. 

July  15,  1870,  an  act  of  Congress  bearing  executive 
approval  declared  Georgia,  the  last  of  the  lately  insurrec- 
tionary States,  reconstructed  under  the  Congressional  policy, 
restored  to  her  original  position  as  before  the  war,  and 
entitled  to  a  representation  in  that  body. 

The  discussion  of  reconstruction,  so  far  as  the  purposes 
of  this  chapter  are  concerned,  as  stated  in  the  outset,  is 
now  complete.  Trivial  omissions  of  minor  details  have 
been  intentionally  made,  as  the  subjects  of  such  omissions 


AMNESTY.  295 

were  not  of  sufficient  dignity  to  require  consideration. 
One  correction  in  this  respect,  however,  will  be  made  in 
this  connection.  The  restoration  of  Virginia,  Texas,  Mis- 
sissippi and  Georgia  not  having  been  effected  when  the 
proposed  Fifteenth  amendment  was  submitted  to  the  States 
for  ratification,  the  additional  duty  of  sanctioning  this 
change  in  our  organic  law  was  imposed  upon  them  by 
Congress  as  a  further  requisite  for  the  admission  of  their 
representation  to  that  body.  This  fact  delayed  the  restora- 
tion of  these  States  to  the  periods  hereinbefore  mentioned. 
The  author  wishes  to  make  the  acknowledgment  that  the 
examination  of  the  statutes  of  the  United  States,  as  con- 
nected with  the  subject  of  the  present  chapter,  has  been 
greatly  facilitated  by  reference  to  the  "Political  Manuals" 
of  Edward  McPherson. 


CHAPTER   III. 

AMNESTY. 

The  Question  stated — The  Several  Measures  of  Proscription — Official 
Proscription — The  Iron-clad  Oath  Act — The  Prescriptive  Feature  of 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Same  construed  with  the  Iron-clad 
Oath  Act,  and  their  Operation  and  Effect  considered — The  Constitu- 
tional Oath  Act — Suffragan  Proscription — The  Abstract  Causes  which 
render  Amnesty  Necessary — The  Direct  and  Collateral  Ends  sought 
by  its  Institution — The  I>ast  fully  equal  to  the  First — The  So-called 
Moral  Argument  against  Amnesty  refuted — The  Various  Prescriptive 
Measures  criticised — The  Same  based  upon  Policy — Not  needed 
to  Secure  the  Results  of  the  I^ite  War — Prejudicial  in  their  Tenden- 
cies to  the  Welfare  of  the  Entire  Nation — Proscription  as  a  Means  of 
Punishment — Inadequate  and  Indefensible — The  Policy  of  Hate — 
Universal  Amnesty  Required — The  Problem  now  before  the  People — 
The  Ku-klux  Klans — The  Pathway  out  of  Present  Difficulties — 
Executive  Action  in  respect  to  Amnesty — Partly  I>egal  and  Partly 
Illegal — President  Johnson  Dismissed — Interlocutory  Comment  upon 


296         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

his   Impeachment — The    Status   of    Missouri — The   United    States 
Supreme  Court  on  Test  Oaths. 

OEVEN  years  have  elapsed  since  Lee's  surrender,  six 
vZ5  since  executive  proclamation  declared  the  late  rebel- 
lion concluded  throughout  our  entire  domain,  four  more 
have  intervened  since  a  majority,  and  two  since  the  last, 
of  the  so-called  seceded  States  were  restored  to  their  original 
position  with  the  General  Government  as  before  the  war  ; 
and  yet  a  numerous  portion  of  the  thinking,  educated  and 
intelligent  men  of  the  above-named  States  are  under  the 
ban  of  political  proscription.  They  cannot  hold  office, 
neither,  in  some  instances,  can  they  vote.  The  record  of 
such  a  fact  at  this  period  is  a  humiliating  commentary  upon 
the  statesmanship  of  the  legislators  who  assume  to  represent 
the  American  people  in  the  halls  of  Congress.  The  asser- 
tion embodied  in  their  assumption,  that  the  majority  of  the 
Northern  population  are  averse  to  universal  amnesty,  is,  to 
say  the  least,  a  grave  mistake  of  a  patent  fact,  and  a  slander 
upon  the  mature  judgment  and  sound  discretion  of  an  in- 
telligent constituency.  It  is,  indeed,  a  condition  of  things 
truly  lamentable  that  it  is  still  necessary  to  argue  the  prop- 
osition that  the  continued  political  proscription  of  the 
most  capable,  experienced  portion  of  the  Southern  masses, 
the  official  ostracism  of  the  greater  part  of  the  educated 
community  of  eleven  of  these  United  States,  the  political, 
commercial  and  industrial  interests  of  one  of  which  are 
the  interests  of  all,  is  exceedingly  detrimental  to  our  gene- 
ral prosperity ;  that  universal  amnesty,  in  short,  is  impera- 
tively demanded  by  every  principle  of  private  and  public 
policy ;  yea  more,  that  it  is  absolutely  indispensable  for  the 
prevention  of  internal  strife  and  the  joinder  of  present  dis- 
cordant elements  for  the  promotion  of  both  local  and 
national  weal.  Such,  however,  is  the  fact,  and  the  pur- 
pose of  this  chapter  is  to  affirm  the  proposition  above 
stated. 


AMNESTY.  297 

Before  proceeding  to  discuss  the  subject,  either  in  its 
abstract  or  relative  bearings,  it  will  be  conducive  to  a  better 
understanding  of  the  same  to  take  a  brief  survey  of  the 
measures  whereon  the  present  system  of  proscription  is 
founded,  and  trace  the  limits  of  its  practical  operation 
through  the  various  stages  of  its  existence.  This  proscrip- 
tion, as  already  stated,  is  of  a  twofold  character — namely, 
official,  that  is,  incapacity  to  hold  office ;  and  suffragan, 
that  is,  inability  to  vote.  Of  these  in  their  order. 

The  superficial  opinion  is  'quite  prevalent  that  the  only 
original  official  proscription  ever  imposed  upon  the  late  re- 
bellious portion  of  our  population  was  by  virtue  of  the 
third  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment.  Nothing 
could  well  be  farther  from  the  truth.  The  prescriptive 
policy  was  inaugurated — and,  the  element  of  time  being 
taken  into  consideration,  very  properly  inaugurated — by 
the  act  of  Congress  of  July  2,  1862.  This  act  embodies 
an  oath  of  office  of  such  stringent  character,  to  which,  by 
the  terms  thereof,  "every  person  elected  or  appointed  to 
any  office  of  honor  or  profit  under  the  Government  of 
the  United  States"  must  subscribe,  that  it  has  been  pro- 
perly denominated  the  "iron-clad  oath."  The  operation 
of  this  act  excluded  all  persons  from  holding  office  under 
the  General  Government  who  had  participated  in  or  sup- 
ported the  late  rebellion.  With  the  exception  of  the  blacks 
and  a  very  small  number  of  whites,  this  act  consequently 
incapacitated  the  entire  population  of  the  recently  rebel- 
lious section  for  holding  office  under  the  United  States. 
Thus  stood  official  proscription  down  to  the  adoption  of 
the  Fourteenth  amendment. 

With  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  commencement  of  re- 
construction Congress  conceived  the  alleged  necessity  of  a 
more  stringent  proscription  than  that  created  by  the  act  of 
1862,  above  described.  For  this  end  the  third  section  of 
the  Fourteenth  amendment  was  devised,  the  importance  of 

N  1 


298         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

which  in  this  connection  demands  its  bodily  incorporation 
herewith — namely : 

"  SECTION  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  or  Represent- 
ative in  Congress,  or  elector  of  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent, or  hold  any  office,  civil  or  military,  under  the  United 
States,  or  under  any  State,  who,  having  previously  taken 
an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress,  or  as  an  officer  of  the 
United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any  State  legislature,  or 
as  an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in 
insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  same,  or  given  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof.  But  Congress  may  by  a 
vote  of  two-thirds  of  each  House  remove  such  disability." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  provisions  of  the  test-oath 
act  of  1862  merely  precluded  all  persons  of  a  prior  rebel 
status  from  holding  office  under  the  General  Government. 
The  prescriptive  feature  of  the  Fourteenth  Article,  however, 
although  it  embraces,  it  is  true,  a  much  smaller  yet  far  more 
important  class,  covers  a  much  wider  field  of  official  status. 
It  contemplates  both  official  and  suffragan  proscription. 
Confining  our  attention  to  the  former  at  present,  it  is  seen 
that  this  change  in  our  organic  law  barred  all  participants 
in  the  late  rebellion  who,  as  prior  members  of  Congress, 
officers  of  the  United  States,  members  of  State  legislatures 
or  executive  or  judicial  officers  of  any  State,  had  taken  an 
oath  to  support  the  national  Constitution,  from  holding  any 
office  whatever,  either  under  a  State  or  the  United  States 
Government.  The  third  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment, therefore,  taken  with  the  test-oath  act  of  1862,  is  a 
cumulative  measure  of  proscription.  The  test-oath  act  in- 
capacitates all  late  rebels  for  holding  office  under  the  Gen- 
eral Government ;  the  Fourteenth  Article  leaves  the  test- 
oath  intact,  and  furthermore  denies  to  all  persons  named 
in  the  third  section  thereof — a  very  important  element — the 
privilege  of  holding  office  under  either  the  government  of 


AMNESTY.  299 

any  State  or  of  the  United  States.  From  this  official  ostra- 
cism, moreover,  so  far  as  these  two  measures  were  concerned, 
there  was  no  exit  whatever ;  for,  although  the  Fourteenth 
amendment  provided  for  the  removal  of  disabilities  by  a 
two-thirds  vote  of  Congress,  still,  the  original  offender, 
purged  in  this  manner  of  his  contempt,  was  obliged  by  the 
act  of  1862  to  subscribe  to  the  iron-clad  oath  therein  con- 
tained— namely,  that  he  had  never  rebelled  against  the 
General  Government — which  was,  of  course,  absolutely 
impossible.  Perceiving  that  the  clause  of  the  Fourteenth 
amendment  which  provided  for  the  removal  of  disabilities 
would  thus  prove  a  dead  letter,  Congress,  as  soon  as  the 
adoption  of  this  article  was  assured — namely,  in  the  spring 
of  1868 — provided  by  its  act  of  July  n  of  that  year  that 
all  persons  proscribed  by  the  Fourteenth  amendment, 
after  procuring  a  removal  of  their  disabilities  by  a  two- 
thirds  vote  of  Congress  in  accordance  therewith,  might 
qualify  for  office  by  subscribing  to  a  mere  oath  to  support 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  instead  of  the  iron- 
clad oath  of  1862.  Thus  in  the  summer  of  1868  stood 
official  proscription  in  the  second  stage  of  its  existence — 
namely,  the  masses  of  prior  rebels  were  incapacitated  by 
the  test-oath  act  of  1862  for  holding  office  under  the  Gen- 
eral Government.  A  portion  of  these  masses  (the  parties 
named  in  the  third  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment) 
were  further  disqualified  for  holding  office  under  any  State 
government,  as  well  as  under  that  of  the  United  States. 
For  the  masses  proscribed  under  the  test-oath  act  of  1862 
there  was  no  relief.  For  that  portion  proscribed  under  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  a  door  was  opened  from  their  offi- 
cial ostracism  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress  and  the 
privilege  of  taking  the  constitutional  oath  of  1868,  instead 
of  the  iron-clad  oath  of  1862.  The  scheme  worked  an  in- 
justice, for  the  masses  proscribed  under  the  test-oath  act 
.  of  1862  were  the  rank  and  file,  so  to  speak,  of  the  late  in- 


3OO          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

surrectionary  faction,  and  comparatively  innocent,  while 
the  limited  class  disqualified  by  the  Fourteenth  amendment 
were  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  and  pre-eminently  guilty. 

The  next  change  in  this  system  of  official  proscription 
was  effected  by  the  act  of  February  15,  1871.  This  measure 
provided  that  all  persons  elected  to  office,  not  incapacitated 
by  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  might  qualify  therefor  by 
taking  the  mild  constitutional  oath  of  1868,  instead  of  the 
iron-clad  one  of  1862.  This  removed  the  cause  of  injustice 
above  referred  to,  and  placed  all  offenders,  relatively  speak- 
ing, upon  a  more  equal  footing.  The  inconsistency  was 
allowed  to  stand,  however,  for  nearly  three  years  without 
the  slightest  modification.  Thus  stood  official  proscription 
in  the  spring  of  1871,  in  the  third  stage  of  its  existence, 
and  thus  it  stands  at  the  present  moment  (February,  1872); 
that  is,  the  great  mass  of  prior  rebels  under  the  act  of  1871 
may  qualify  for  office  without  any  difficulty  whatever;  the 
portion  proscribed  by  the  Fourteenth  amendment  may 
qualify  by  first  procuring  the  removal  of  their  disabilities 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress ;  and  then  both  classes — 
all  prior  rebels — may  be  inducted  into  any  office,  under  the 
government  of  any  late  insurrectionary  State  or  that  of  the 
United  States,  by  subscribing  to  a  simple  oath  to  support 
the  national  Constitution  ;  while  all  non-participants  in  the 
late  rebellion  can  enter  upon  the  duties  of  such  offices  only 
by  taking  the  iron-clad  oath  of  1862.  Absurdity  so  patent 
requires  no  remark  whatever. 

Turning  now  to  the  matter  of  suffragan  proscription,  the 
gist  of  the  system  is  found  in  the  third  section  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment  and  the  reconstruction  act  of  March  2, 
1867,  and  those  amendatory  thereof.  This  amendment 
works  suffragan  proscription— that  is,  denies  the  privilege 
of  voting — only  to  the  extent  of  precluding  the  parties 
named  therein  from  becoming  electors  of  a  President  and 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States.  In  reference  to  the 


AMNESTY.  301 

restriction  placed  upon  suffrage  by  the  reconstruction  acts, 
a  preliminary  remark  may  not  be  deemed  wholly  unneces- 
sary. As  the  right  to  regulate  suffrage  is  impliedly  left  by 
the  national  Constitution  to  the  several  States,  it  is  evident 
that  when  the  lately  insurrectionary  ones  were  once  restored 
to  their  original  position  as  before  the  war  no  restriction 
could  be  placed  upon  suffrage  within  their  limits  except  by 
an  amendment  to  our  organic  law.  As  Congress  did  not 
see  fit  to  propose  such  an  amendment  for  ratification,  it  se- 
cured, in  an  indirect  manner,  a  very  considerable  restric- 
tion of  suffrage  in  the  late  rebellious  section  by  means  of 
the  reconstruction  measures  inaugurated  by  the  act  of  March 
2,  1867.  These  acts  provided  that  the  lately  insurrection- 
ary States  should  not  be  admitted  to  their  representation  in 
Congress  until,  among  other  things,  they  should  have 
adopted  State  constitutions  which  should  meet  the  approval 
of  the  national  legislature.  Acting  upon  this  requirement, 
these  prior  rebel  States,  for  the  most  part,  framed  constitu- 
tions whereby  a  considerable  portion  of  the  population  who 
participated  in  the  rebellion  are  denied  the  privilege  of  the 
elective  franchise.  These  constitutions,  in  respect  to  suf- 
fragan proscription,  have  been  materially  modified  by  sub- 
sequent amendments.  The  way  is  now  opened  for  the 
examination  of  Amnesty  in  both  its  abstract  and  relative 
conditions. 

At  the  outset  of  the  present  branch  of  this  discussion 
the  inquiry  is  peculiarly  pertinent,  What  are  the  causes 
which  render  the  institution  of  amnesty  necessary,  or  even 
desirable?  The  answer  is  no  less  simple  than  the  inter- 
rogatory is  pointed :  Amnesty  assumes  a  place  in  the 
polity  of  a  nation  solely  because  offences  have  been  com- 
mitted against  its  government.  The  only  beneficiaries  of 
such  a  policy,  moreover,  are  the  parties  guilty  of  the 
offences  which  amnesty  proposes  to  condone.  Amnesty,  in 
short,  is  pardon  for  an  offending  class.  These  are  plain, 
26 


302          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

homely  truths — so  plain  and  homely,  indeed,  that  they 
have  been  entirely  overlooked  by  men  who  stand  in  the 
halls  of  Congress  and  hold  the  welfare  of  the  country  in 
their  grasp.  The  sentiment,  in  fact — in  substance,  if  not 
in  words — has  repeatedly  found  expression  from  the  lips  of 
parties  who  respond  to  the  appellation  of  statesmen,  that 
the  guilt  of  our  prior  rebel  population  precludes  them  from 
laying  any  claim  to  amnesty  whatever.  Does  frail  humanity 
seek  forgiveness  of  its  Maker  on  the  score  of  virtue  ?  Does 
innocence  put  up  a  prayer  for  pardon  ?  The  affirmative  of 
these  inquiries  is  the  precise  ground  whereon  a  majority  of 
the  opponents  of  amnesty  take  their  stand.  Their  position 
is  both  an  abuse  of  terms  and  a  stultification  of  law  munici- 
pal as  well  as  law  divine. 

The  deduction  is  warrantably  made  from  the  next  pre- 
ceding paragraph  that  the  direct  end  of  amnesty  is  pardon 
by  government  to  offenders  against  its  authority.  The 
thought  suggests  itself,  however,  in  this  connection  :  Are 
there  no  collateral  results  obtained  by  the  institution  of 
amnesty  ?  Is  the  absolution  of  the  guilty  the  only  end 
which  government  contemplates  in  the  establishment  of 
such  a  policy?  "  'Who  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me,' 
fell  from  the  same  lips  which  taught  that  love  is  the  first 
duty  of  man,"  is  one  of  the  many  elegant  apothegms  of 
Frederick  Spielhagen,  but  forgiveness  prompted  by  pure 
motives  of  affection  is  not  an  attribute  of  states  and  govern- 
ments. It  belongs  to  individuals  and  God  alone.  The 
springs  of  amnesty,  of  governmental  pardon,  are  found  in 
the  expectation  of  contingent  gain.  Nations,  so  to  speak, 
are  but  concretions  of  individuals.  Their  strength  lies  in 
the  harmony  of  the  component  masses,  and  their  prosperity 
is  dependent,  in  a  great  measure,  upon  the  existence  of  a 
feeling  of  common  loyalty  among  its  several  members. 
The  promotion  of  this  strength  and  the  augmentation  of 
this  loyal  sentiment  are  the  indirect  ends  and  contingent 


AMNESTY.  303 

gains  which  amnesty  seeks  to  secure.  The  existence  of  this 
state  of  harmony  and  loyal  sentiment  among  the  inhabit- 
ants of  a  state,  moreover,  is  brought  about  by  the  opera- 
tion of  law.  Law  eventuates  in  these  results  in  a  twofold 
method.  The  first  is  by  imperative  command  ;  the  second 
is  by  the  institution  of  a  condition  of  things  whereby  the 
motives  which  lead  to  individual  action  are  voluntarily  re- 
formed or  changed.  Is  the  first  the  most  productive  of  the 
greatest  good  ?  No  !  Humanity  is  not  thus  constituted. 
Inducements  are  far  more  potent  than  arbitrary  edicts.  It 
is  in  the  second  method  above  defined  that  amnesty  seeks 
the  contingent  gains  above  expressed.  Now,  how  shall  it 
seek  the  greatest  gain?  Or,  in  other  words,  what  grade  of 
amnesty,  what  measure  of  pardon,  gives  the  most  abundant 
warrant  for  national  prosperity  ?  There  is  but  one  reply, 
in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  truths — namely :  The  most 
complete  pardon — the  fullest  amnesty — universal  amnesty. 
There  is  a  so-called  moral  argument  put  forward  in  this 
connection  which  holds  that  an  absolute  refusal  of  amnesty 
is  in  some  instances  obligatory  upon  governments,  in  order 
to  deter  the  commission  of  future  offences  against  their 
authority.  The  argument  is  out  of  place,  foreign  to  the 
subject  to  which  its  authors  would  tack  it.  It  belongs  to 
the  science  of  purely  criminal  law,  the  infliction  of  penalties 
upon  parties  guilty  of  crime  involving  moral  turpitude  un- 
mixed with  political  motives.  Political  offences,  under 
every  government  and  in  all  countries,  have  never  been 
classed  or  treated  as  absolute  crimes.  Their  treatment  has 
always  been  in  the  light  of  policy  much  more  than  with  a 
view  of  punishment.  In  connection  with  unqualified  crime 
this  so-called  moral  argument  is  both  pertinent  and  whole- 
some. In  connection  with  political  offence  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  entirely  per  gratia,  an  enforcement  of  dwarfed  states- 
manship, a  mere  argument  of  simple  selfish  vengeance.  It 
is  the  treatment  of  political  offences  merely,  and  not  crimes, 


304         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

with  which  amnesty  has  to  do.  The  remembrance  of  this 
fact  avoids  the  mistake  of  the  promulgators  of  the  theory 
above  described. 

In  the  light  of  these  abstract  principles  we  are  prepared 
to  examine  the  subject  of  amnesty  as  connected  with  the 
immediate  status  of  political  affairs  in  these  United  States. 
The  reason  why  future  amnesty  is  sought  by  offenders 
against  our  national  authority  is  due  to  the  fact  of  past  pro- 
scription. The  method  of  such  proscription  was  detailed 
in  the  opening  remarks  of  this  discussion.  A  brief  exami- 
nation of  the  merits  of  this  proscriptive  policy,  and  of  the 
ends  it  sought  to  accomplish,  is  necessary  in  this  connec- 
tion. The  initiatory  measure  of  proscription  as  provided 
in  the  test-oath  act  of  1862  was  purely  a  politic  institution. 
It  in  no  way  contemplated  a  punishment  of  the  faction 
engaged  in  the  rebellion.  It  was  designed  to  bar  the 
participants  therein  from  obtaining  office  and  power  under 
the  General  Governmeirt,  whereby  their  unjust  and  rebel- 
lious schemes  might  be  carried  to  a  more  successful  issue. 
At  that  crisis  of  our  history,  moreover,  the  measure  was 
eminently  sound  and  wholesome.  It  was  a  simple  compli- 
ance with  the  law  of  self-preservation.  The  country  was 
in  the  midst  of  unprecedented  and  indeterminate  civil 
war,  and  its  chosen  guardians  were  bound  by  their  official 
oaths,  as  well  as  by  every  reason  of  justice,  to  closely 
hedge  the  gateways  which  led  to  places  of  official  honor 
and  trust. 

The  next  succeeding  measures  of  this  proscriptive  policy 
are  found  in  the  third  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment and  the  constitutional  oath  act  of  1868.  The  charac- 
ter of  these  institutions  was  fully  stated  in  the  early  part  of 
this  discussion.  At  the  period  of  their  conception  even, 
without  reference  to  the  time  of  their  adoption,  the  late 
rebellion  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  entirely  con- 
cluded. With  this  fact  in  view  the  inquiry  is  pertinent, 


AMNESTY.  3O5 

What  were  the  ends  contemplated  by  these  second  measures 
of  our  prescriptive  policy?  Were  they  devised  as  a  mea- 
sure of  punishment,  or  for  purely  politic  purposes,  or  for 
both  combined?  Undoubtedly  the  latter,  and  in  both 
respects  they  were  pre-eminently  defective.  These  meas- 
ures were  characterized  by  motives  of  policy,  in  that  they 
sought  the  continued  ascendency  of  the  party  in  power. 
They  contemplated  a  means  of  punishment  in  the  proscrip- 
tion of  the  more  prominent  classes  of  the  South.  Let  us 
look,  for  a  moment,  at  the  feasibility  of  these  measures  in 
this  double  aspect  and  in  the  order  above  named.  At 
the  date  of  their  contemplated  procurement  the  paramount 
need  of  the  entire  country  was  the  establishment  of  a  firm, 
comprehensive,  conciliatory  government  for  the  Southern 
States — one  which  should  afford  ample  protection  for  every 
class,  it  is  true,  but  one,  moreover,  which  should  not  alien- 
ate or  estrange  any  section.  This  was  the  policy  which 
imperatively  demanded  adoption  in  the  spring  of  1866. 
Was  its  perfection  properly  provided  for  in  the  two  prescrip- 
tive measures  last  named,  the  third  section  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment  and  the  constitutional  oath  act  of  1868? 
In  no  possible  manner  can  the  inquiry  be  affirmed.  These 
features  of  our  more  general  reconstruction  scheme  gave 
the  entire  control  of  the  delicate  and  stupendous  task  of 
re-establishing  State  governments  throughout  the  South  into 
the  hands  of  people  who,  for  the  most  part,  although  just 
released  from  the  bonds  of  slavery,  were  completely  ham- 
pered with  the  fetters  of  ignorance.  From  all  share  in 
this  important  work  the  intelligent  and  experienced  masses 
of  the  South  were  entirely  excluded.  It  would  seem  to  re- 
quire no  argument  to  prove  that  the  delicate  machinery  of 
government  could  not  be  organized  by  such  a  motive- 
poxver.  At  the  present  epoch  of  our  history  it  is  certainly 
not  required.  The  governmental  status  of  the  lately  re- 
IxMlious  states  is  an  all-sufficient  commentary  thereon. 


3O6         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

The  point  is  raised  in  this  connection  that  the  substantial 
results  of  the  war  would  have  been  virtually  abandoned 
without  the  proscription  imposed  by  the  third  section  of 
the  Fourteenth  Article  of  our  organic  law.  Taking  from 
the  Fourteenth  amendment  its  prescriptive  section,  and 
substituting  nothing  in  its  stead,  the  proposition  is  perfectly 
tenable  and  correct.  Otherwise  not.  The  gist  of  the  ar- 
gument is,  that  in  the  absence  of  this  proscription  the  State 
governments  of  the  South  would  have  passed  entirely  under 
the  control  of  the  old  promulgators  and  leaders  of  the  re- 
bellion— that  the  blacks  would  have  been  denied  a  voice  in 
their  construction  and  management,  and  the  ascendency  of 
the  Republican  party  put  in  jeopardy.  The  continued  as- 
cendency of  that  party  in  1866,  as  now — or  rather  the 
principles  of  which  the  party  was  and  is  declared  to  be  the 
exponent — was  an  end  greatly  to  be  desired.  But  neither  a 
continued  lease  of  power  to  this  political  organization  nor 
the  political  status  of  the  blacks  was  secured  by  proscrip- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  both  were  imperiled.  These  pre- 
scriptive measures  arrayed  the  intelligent  masses  of  the 
South — the  arch-rebels,  if  this  appellation  is  more  satis- 
factory— in  direct  and  open  hostility  against  not  only  the 
prior  slave  element,  but  the  General  Government,  and  there- 
by the  Republican  party.  It  was  like  establishing  a  hostile 
army  of  occupation,  composed  of  the  very  forces  necessary 
for  co-operation  in  the  general  work  of  reconstruction,  in 
our  own  territory.  The  scheme  failed,  and  it  deserved  to 
fail,  ignobly  and  irretrievably.  The  pathway  out  of  the 
surrounding  difficulties  of  1866  (that  is,  if  we  were  to  have 
universal  suffrage)  was  perfectly  simple  and  apparent.  No 
proscription,  universal  amnesty,  the  direct  declaratory  pro- 
vision of  the  Fifteenth  amendment  instead  of  the  hesitating, 
indirect  threatening  voice  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  as  to  suf- 
frage for  the  blacks,  and  a  rigorous  election  law  to  protect 
voters  at  the  polls  and  render  fraudulent  ballots  impossible. 


AMNESTY.  SO/ 

A  plain,  firm  and  yet  conciliatory  policy  of  this  sort  would 
have  made  the  Southern  people  a  unit,  promoted  a  spirit  of 
loyalty  for  the  General  Government,  sustained  the  Repub- 
lican party,  and  immeasurably  enhanced  the  general  pros- 
perity of  the  country. 

Turning  now  to  this  proscriptive  policy  as  a  means  of 
punishment,  very  little  need  be  said.  It  was  wholly  in- 
adequate. If  punishment  was  to  be  meted  out  to  the  par- 
ticipants in  the  late  rebellion,  the  scheme  of  proscription 
was  in  no  way  appreciable  of  its  necessary  extent.  As  a 
punitive  measure  it  was  merely  tantalizing,  annoying  and 
productive  of  sectional  strife  and  discord.  If  the  prior 
rebel  population  were  to  suffer  a  penalty  for  their  revolt, 
the  only  one  of  sufficient  dignity  to  demand  enforcement, 
on  the  score  of  barring  future  rebellion,  was  either  banish- 
ment or  death.  Opposed  to  this  alternative  there  was  no 
other  tenable  ground  but  absolute  and  unlimited  pardon. 
For  governments,  at  least,  if  not  for  individuals,  enemies 
are  best  despatched  or  made  friends.  It  was  of  all  follies 
the  most  absurd  to  place  thousands  of  intelligent  and  think- 
ing men,  who  were  to  live  under  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  and  form  innumerable  and  indissoluble  com- 
mercial and  social  relations  with  the  inhabitants  of  other 
sections,  in  a  position  where  they  could  be  possessed  of  no 
othei  possible  motive  but  to  rebel.  Moreover,  many  of 
the  proscribed  masses  of  the  South,  indeed,  regarded  their 
political  ostracism  as  a  sort  of  grim  dignity,  an  insignia  of 
paramount  importance,  while  in  the  remaining  portion  it 
only  engenders  feelings  of  hatred  on  account  of  its  trivial 
import  as  compared  with  the  gravity  of  their  offence. 
Thus  much  for  the  measures  of  proscription  and  their  al- 
leged merits.  Attention  will  now  be  directed  to  present 
and  future  needs  as  connected  with  their  further  existence. 

The  problem  now  demanding  solution  at  the  hands  of 
American  statesmen  is  the  present  and  future  material  pros- 


308         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

perity  of  the  country.  We  are  dealing — or  rather  should 
deal — with  the  promotion  of  present  and  future  interests, 
instead  of  remembrance  of  past  misfortunes  or  the  nature 
and  existence  of  prior  disagreements.  The  more  especial 
wants  of  the  country,  as  suggested  by  this  question  of 
material  weal,  are  best  seen  in  the  present  condition  of 
affairs  at  the  South.  A  more  humiliating  burlesque  upon 
government  could  scarce  be  imagined  than  that  presented 
by  several  of  the  lately  rebellious  States.  The  ignorant 
masses  into  whose  hands  was  exclusively  committed  the 
work  of  reconstructing  governments  for  this  section  of  the 
country  have,  as  a  matter  of  course,  proved  wholly  incom- 
petent for  the  task.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether 
the  country  has  suffered  most  by  their  ignorance  or  credu- 
lity. The  former  has  rendered  them  entirely  incompetent 
for  the  places  of  trust  to  which  our  prescriptive  policy  has 
elected  them,  and  the  latter  has  opened  a  door  through 
which  Northern  adventurers  of  the  most  contemptible 
stamp  have  been  able  to  secure  appointments  to  public 
office,  and  make  use  of  their  official  positions  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  advancing  their  individual  and  nefarious  schemes. 
The  States  of  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  indeed,  have 
been  plunged  into  almost  hopeless  and  irremediable  bank- 
ruptcy by  reason  of  the  fact  that  Northern  men,  claiming 
to  represent  the  principles  and  honesty  of  the  Republican 
party,  have  warily  invested  themselves  with  the  control  of 
their  governments,  unwarrantably  and  illegally  issued  cer- 
tificates of  public  indebtedness,  negotiated  them  at  a  ruin- 
ous sacrifice,  and,  it  is  openly  alleged  and  not  disproved, 
largely  availed  themselves  of  the  proceeds.  These  are  a 
part  of  the  legitimate  fruits  of  proscription.  But  only  a 
part.  The  Ku-klux  Klans  which  have  for  the  past  year 
infested  portions  of  the  Southern  States  are  the  natural  off- 
spring of  our  prescriptive  policy.  Their  diabolical  creeds 
and  practices  were  immediately  suggested  by  the  system 


.  AMNESTY.  309 

which  consigned  them  to  political  banishment  and  invested 
their  former  subordinates  with  the  exclusive  possession  of 
official  power. 

If  we  pause  at  this  juncture  and  cast  about  us  for  the 
initiatory  remedy  which  shall  remove  this  ulcer  from  the 
heart  of  our  material  prosperity,  the  search  can  eventuate 
but  in  one  result.  The  pathway  out  of  these  difficulties  is 
the  same  now  as  it  was  in  the  spring  of  1866,  with  the  ex- 
ception that  one  obstruction  to  its  passage  has  been  re- 
moved. At  that  period,  and  after  the  ratification  of  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  even,  the  blacks  were  not  secure  in 
the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise.  Whether  they  should 
vote  or  no  depended  entirely  upon  the  peculiar  policy  of 
the  particular  State  wherein  they  were  resident.  The  Fif- 
teenth amendment,  and  the  act  of  Congress  for  its  enforce- 
ment, however,  have  placed  the  suffragan  privilege  of  the 
prior  slave  population  beyond  the  reach  of  State  or  local 
supervision,  and  transformed  it  into  an  absolute  right. 
This  change  defeats  the  alleged  force  of  the  'objection 
noticed  in  a  prior  part  of  this  discussion,  that  proscription  is 
necessary  to  secure  the  substantial  benefits  of  the  war — that 
without  it  the  former  rebel  element  would  mould  the  struc- 
ture and  shape  the  policy  of  the  governments  of  the  Southern 
States  in  accordance  with  their  own  exclusive  will.  The 
question  is  not  susceptible  of  doubt.  The  preliminary  step 
which  will  most  effectually  inaugurate  a  return  of  the  ma- 
terial prosperity  of  the  entire  country  is  the  remedy  which 
should  have  been  applied  in  1866,  as  hereinbefore  stated. 
The  appropriation  for  further  space  of  its  represcription  is 
entirely  unnecessary.  It  is  universal  amnesty.  Its  institution 
at  this  late  day,  even,  would  disband  the  Ku-klux,  render 
further  and  similar  organizations  absolutely  impossible, 
conciliate  the  now  opposing  factions  of  the  South,  trans- 
form the  present  and  powerful  proscribed  classes  from 
enemies  to  friends,  give  honest  intelligence  a  share  in  the 


3IO         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

administration  of  the  public  business  and  politics  of  the 
lately  rebellious  States,  and  completely  reunite  the  indus- 
trial and  commercial  interests  of  the  whole  repoblic. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  and  much  to  be  lost  by 
making  even  a  single  exception.  If  we  mistal-e  not,  every 
applicant — at  least  very  nearly  every  one  who  has  applied 
to  Congress  for  the  removal  of  disabilities  imposed  by  the 
proscriptive  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment — has 
been  granted  his  prayer.  Even  General  Longstreet,  one 
of  the  most  powerful  leaders  of  the  rebelli  jn,  was  not 
denied ;  and  the  closer  the  lines  of  our  prosci  <ptive  policy 
are  drawn,  the  more  prominence  is  given  to  ti  ose  confined 
within  their  limits.  It  is  a  prominence,  moreover,  as 
already  stated,  which  is  boasted  of  by  many  to  whom  it 
attaches.  It  is  a  patent  fact  of  history  that  Jefferson  Davis, 
in  the  lifetime  of  General  Lee,  ridiculed  the  idea  of  the 
latter  accepting  a  pardon  from  the  United  States,  as  such  a 
course  would  detract  from  his  fame,  and  at  Lee's  death 
Davis  boasted  of  the  stoicism  which  made  him  proud  of 
his  political  banishment. 

A  little  incidental  comment  in  reference  to  legislative 
and  executive  action  in  respect  to  amnesty  demands  a  place 
in  this  connection.  The  act  of  Congress  of  July  17,  1862, 
empowered  the  President  to  grant  amnesty  and  pardon  to 
participants  in  the  late  rebellion,  with  a  discretion  to  make 
such  exceptions  as  the  public  welfare  might  seem  to  require. 
In  pursuance  of  this  power,  President  Johnson,  May  29, 
1865,  issued  a  proclamation  of  amnesty  and  pardon  to 
prior  rebels,  excepting  from  the  operation  thereof  fourteen 
classes  of  persons  at  the  South,  upon  condition  of  their 
taking  an  oath  to  support  the  Government  and  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  Among  these  excepted  classes  were 
included  all  the  persons  afterward  proscribed  by  the  third 
section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment.  January  21,  1867, 
the  provision  of  the  aforesaid  act  establishing  the  pardon- 


AMNESTY.  3 1 1 

ing  power  above  referred  to  was  repealed.  It  will  be  re- 
membered, however,  that  in  our  chronological  narrative  of 
reconstruction  the  fact  appeared  that  President  Johnson, 
subsequently  not  only  to  the  date  last  above  named,  but  also 
to  the  period  of  the  ratification  of  the  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment, issued  several  proclamations  of  amnesty  and  pardon, 
the  last  of  which  assumed  to  give  full  absolution  to  every 
participant  in  the  late  rebellion.  How  far  these  last-named 
measures  of  amnesty  were  effectual  is  certainly  a  matter  of 
considerable  importance.  For  the  most  part,  at  least,  they 
had  no  legitimate  effect,  but  were  an  absolute  dead  letter. 
The  point  admits  of  a  very  simple  and  easy  analysis.  The 
second  section  of  the  Second  Article  of  the  Constitution 
gives  the  President  "power  to  grant  reprieves  and  pardons 
for  offences  against  the  United  States,  except  in  cases  of 
impeachment."  Whether  this  power  contemplated  the 
investment  of  the  executive  with  the  prerogative  of  grant- 
ing pardon  to  offenders  who  were  such  by  reason  of  having 
taken  up  arms  against  the  Government,  or  whether  it  merely 
intended  executive  pardon  to  attach  to  such  offenders  against 
the  United  States  as  had  transgressed  some  statute  thereof, 
and  were  thus  criminally  guilty  (and  otherwise  they  could 
not  be,  for  the  United  States  have  no  national  common  law 
in  respect  to  crimes),  may  be  a  matter  of  doubt.  Probably 
not,  however.  The  latter  view  is  the  better  doctrine,  but 
the  doubt,  if  there  is  any,  does  not,  as  to  offenders  under 
the  Fourteenth  amendment,  affect  the  point  here  at  issue. 
President  Johnson  issued  but  one  proclamation  of  amnesty 
and  pardon  prior  to  the  ratification  of  this  amendment.  That 
proclamation  did  not  include  any  of  the  classes  proscribed 
by  the  Fourteenth  Article.  Thus  far  there  is  no  collision. 
Now,  granting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  second 
section  of  the  Second  Article  of  the  Constitution  herein- 
before quoted  invests  the  executive  with  power  to  pardon 
persons  who  have  taken  up  arms  against  the  Government  in 


312          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

an  open,  general  war  of  rebellion,  as  well  as  persons  who 
are  offenders  by  reason  of  having  criminally  transgressed  a 
United  States  statute,  even  then  President  Johnson's  amnesty 
decrees  subsequent  to  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  as  to 
offenders  thereunder,  are  clearly  illegal.  The  third  section 
of  that  article  repealed  the  pardoning  power  conferred  by  the 
second  section,  so  far  as  the  parties  therein  named  were  con- 
cerned, and  the  executive  power  of  pardon  granted  by  the 
act  of  July  17,  1862,  before  referred  to,  having  been  re- 
pealed, the  President  was  powerless  to  absolve  offenders 
under  the  Fourteenth  amendment  of  their  guilt.  As  to 
those  not  included  in  the  prescriptive  section  of  this  amend- 
ment, if  the  constitutional  power  of  pardon  contained  in  the 
second  section  of  the  Second  Article,  hereinbefore  quoted, 
vested  the  President  with  the  right  to  grant  amnesty  to  par- 
ticipants in  the  rebellion — which  can  hardly  be  maintained 
— then  such  offenders  were  pardoned  by  President  John- 
son's proclamations.  This  point,  however,  is  not  material, 
as  the  class  last  mentioned  are  fully  relieved  of  proscription 
by  the  act  of  Congress  of  February  15,  1871. 

This  is  the  last  connection  in  which  the  name  of  Andrew 
Johnson  will  require  to  be  mentioned.  In  no  instance 
herein  has  a  personal  defence  or  criticism  of  that  individual 
been  essayed,  nor  will  such  a  task  be  now  assumed.  It  is 
entirely  irrelevant  to  the  purposes  of  the  present  treatise. 
The  record  of  his  official  acts,  however,  must  ever  figure 
largely  in  every  discussion  of  the  measures  whereunder  the 
lately  rebellious  States  were  restored  to  their  original  rela- 
tions with  the  General  Government.  Throughout  this  en- 
tire work,  thus  far,  this  record  has  been  freely  and  impar- 
tially examined.  Whenever  it  has  seemed  legal  and  ten- 
able it  has  been  frankly  and  candidly  approved,  and  where- 
in it  has  appeared  unsound  and  unwarranted  it  has  been 
with  equal  candor  condemned.  Having  been  thus  obliged 
to  refer  to  the  greater  portion  of  Mr.  Johnson's  course 


AMNESTY.  3 1 3 

while  he  was  President  of  the  United  States,  a  single  word 
in  reference  to  his  impeachment  may  not  be  deemed  super- 
fluous. It  will  be  merely  a  word.  His  acquittal  of  the 
charges  whereof  he  was  impeached  was,  without  doubt,  a 
perfectly  legal  verdict.  He  had  been  guilty  of  many  indis- 
cretions, which,  in  consideration  of  his  high  official  posi- 
tion, were  foolish  and  unwise  in  the  extreme,  but  the  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  Congress  to  raise  these  indiscretions 
to  the  dignity  of  criminal  misdemeanors  was  an  evidence  of 
far  greater  indiscretion  and  unwisdom.  It  was  indeed  an 
absolute  libel  upon  statesmanship.  There  was  not  a  lawyer 
in  Congress  who  did  not  know — or  at  least  ought  to  have 
known — that  as  a  matter  of  law  and  evidence  the  convic- 
tion of  Andrew  Johnson  was  impossible.  The  only  hope 
the  legal  managers  of  the  prosecution  could  have  had  of 
securing  a  verdict  of  guilty  must  have  been  based  upon  the 
intense  partisan  spirit  (which  last  the  President  had  pro- 
voked) then  existing  against  the  defendant.  Good  policy 
and  sound  statesmanship  are  not  evidenced  by  such  games 
of  chance.  Reliance  upon  such  partisan  feeling  for  the 
conviction  of  Mr.  Johnson  does  not  place  the  legal  man- 
agers of  the  prosecution  in  a  very  enviable  position,  it  is 
true,  but  the  assumption  that  they  anticipated  such  convic- 
tion upon  the  evidence  adduced  and  law  involved  is  a  com- 
mentary upon  their  legal  erudition  far  too  humiliating  to 
admit  of  any  other  conclusion.  Either  horn  of  the  dilem- 
ma is  undesirable  in  the  extreme ;  the  former  runs  farthest 
from  ignorance,  and  the  latter  nearest  to  honesty. 

The  votes  of  three  Senators  for  acquittal  abundantly  sub- 
stantiate the  foregoing  remarks,  and,  from  the  character 
and  legal  ability  in  particular  of  the  men  who  cast  them, 
outweigh  every  vote  given  for  conviction.  Reference  is 
had  to  William  Pitt  Fessenden  of  Maine,  James  N.  Grimes 
of  Iowa,  and  Lyman  Trumbull  of  Illinois.  These  three 
names  were  the  true  exponents  of  the  legal  ability  and  ma- 
27  o 


314         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ture  statesmanship  of  the  Fortieth  Congress.  They  were, 
moreover,  the  real  supporters  of  the  principles  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  and  the  shafts  of  calumny  which  sought  to 
defame  their  character  and  reputation  for  their  action  in 
this  direction  proved  powerless  in  their  purpose,  and  re- 
coiled upon  the  traducers  to  whom  they  owed  their  origin. 
The  lips  of  the  first  two  are  sealed  in  a  death  of  unexcep- 
tionable honor,  but  the  last  still  lives,  one  of  the  most  pro- 
found and  consistent  statesmen  of  the  American  republic. 

Words  in  approval  of  Mr.  Johnson  in  any  respect  will 
doubtless  find  little  favor  with  the  mass  of  our  population. 
The  author  is  no  friend  or  admirer  of  that  individual.  A 
man  of  full  ordinary  ability  and  attainments,  he  gave  evi- 
dence of  many  faults  and  foibles,  and  had  the  misfortune 
to  succeed  to  the  presidential  chair  at  a  time  in  which,  by 
reason  of  the  extremely  delicate  interests  which  required 
adjustment,  it  was  well  nigh  impossible  for  any  man,  even 
Mr.  Lincoln,  to  perform  the  duties  thereof  without  eliciting 
the  sharpest  censure  from  some  portion  of  his  constituency. 
Having  unsparingly  criticised  Mr.  Johnson's  course  in  many 
respects,  supported  it  in  others,  the  writer,  in  his  attempt  to 
impartially  comment  upon  patent  facts  of  the  past,  as  a  vin- 
dication of  history  even,  although  it  be  at  the  expense  of 
favor  with  his  readers,  was  compelled,  after  dispassionate 
examination  of  the  political  issues  in  which  the  successor 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  so  conspicuously  acted,  to  do  him  this 
simple  act  of  justice ;  and  herewith  he  is  dismissed. 

Returning  from  this  digression,  the  progress  of  amnesty 
in  the  direction  assumed  to  be  necessary  by  this  discussion 
— universal  amnesty — has  been  thus  far  of  little  import. 
Several  attempts  have  been  made  in  Congress  to  establish 
comparative  measures  of  this  character — that  is,  a  general 
amnesty,  with  certain  exceptions  of  prominent  classes — but 
all  have  failed.  The  last  bill  of  this  sort  was  defeated  in 
the  present  session  of  Congress  (the  winter  of  1871-72)  by 


AMNESTY.  315 

tacking  thereto  a  civil  rights  amendment  of  Senator  Sum- 
ner's,  which  in  some  respects,  as  shown  in  a  prior  discus- 
sion of  the  civil  rights  bill  that  preceded  the  Fourteenth 
amendment,  was  unconstitutional  and  in  every  way  ill-ad- 
vised. 

Locally  speaking,  however,  the  State  of  Missouri  forms  a 
noticeable  and  commendable  exception  in  this  particular. 
The  constitution  of  1864,  framed  when  the  interests  of  the 
State  were  terribly  prejudiced  by  the  presence  of  the  late 
rebellion,  was  rigorously  proscriptive  in  character,  and  de- 
nied to  many  of  its  inhabitants  the  privilege  of  the  elective 
franchise.  An  election  law  of  1868  drew  the  lines  of  pro- 
scription still  closer.  In  1870,  however,  the  fact  became 
apparent  to  the  more  intelligent  and  capable  portion  of 
her  people  that  Missouri  suffered  instead  of  profited  by  pro- 
scription. This  view,  indeed,  had  been  held  by  a  certain 
class  since  the  election  law  of  1868  above  mentioned  ;  and 
in  1870,  under  the  able  leadership  of  B.  Gratz  Brown,  who 
had  stoutly  and  to  his  own  personal  prejudice  advocated 
emancipation  in  1857,  and  as  forcibly  and  with  marked 
consistency  declared  for  equal  suffrage  in  1867,  indefatiga- 
bly  assisted  by  Carl  Schurz,  the  supporters  thereof  carried 
the  State  election,  thereby  securing  a  change  in  the  State 
constitution  and  a  consequent  abolition  of  its  proscriptive 
features. 

As  important  collateral  facts  worthy  of  record  in  this 
connection,  the  bare  statement  will  be  made  that  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  (January  14,  1867),  in  a  case  carried 
there  arising  under  the  constitution  of  Missouri  (John  A. 
Cummings  vs.  The  State  of  Missouri),  has  held  the  imposi- 
tion of  test-oaths  of  loyalty  by  State  law  to  be  constitu- 
tional ;  and  in  another  instance  has  held  that  pardon  and 
amnesty  give  prior  rebels  a  status  to  prosecute  suits  therein 
against  the  General  Government.  The  last  decision  is  the 
more  important  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  Congress,  by  an 


3l6         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

act  of  July  12,  1870,  decreed  that  such  parties  should  be 
denied  such  status  in  this  court — that  this  tribunal,  in  fact, 
should  not  have  jurisdiction  of  cases  to  which  such  persons 
were  parties.  The  subject  of  amnesty  is  here  concluded. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

FORCE  LEGISLATION. 

The  Enforcement  or  "Ku-klux"  Act  stated — Its  General  Character 
— Construed  with  the  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Act  in  this 
Connection  Irrelevant — The  First  Eight  Amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  Bill  of  Rights — The  Case  of  the  Blacks — The  Four- 
teenth Amendment  runs  against  the  States — The  Enforcement  Act 
runs  against  Individuals — The  Act  confers  Executive  and  Judicial 
Powers — Unconstitutional — The  Subject  in  this  Connection  fully 
considered — The  Manner  in  which  it  Violates  the  Constitution — 
The  Habeas  Corpus  Question — Invasion  and  Rebellion  considered — 
Congress  Illegally  Construed  both  the  Constitution  and  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment — Miscellaneous  Comment — The  Plea  of  Neces- 
sity considered  and  refuted — The  Inherent  Errors  of  Force  Legis- 
lation— The  Centralization  of  Power  referred  to — The  Duty  of  the 
American  People — Present  Tendencies — Action  taken  under  the 
Law — The  Scheme  entirely  Impolitic,  as  well  as  Illegal — The 
Present  Condition  of  the  South  under  the  so-called  "Carpet-Bag" 
Governments. 

ON  the  2oth  day  of  April,  1871,  an  act  of  Congress  by 
virtue  of  executive  approval  became  a  law,  which, 
although  designed  perhaps  to  serve  a  temporary  purpose,  is 
of  such  an  extraordinary  character  and  so  entirely  without 
precedent  that  its  consideration  demands  a  place  in  the  part 
of  this  treatise  otherwise  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  meas- 
ures intended  to  institute  more  permanent  changes  in  our  or- 
ganic and  municipal  code.  The  act  bears  the  following  title : 
"An  act  to  enforce  the  provisions  of  the  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  for  other 


FORCE   LEGISLATION.  3 1/ 

purposes."  It  is  more  commonly  known  as  the  Ku-klux 
Bill.  The  most  that  can  be  said  for  the  title  is,  that  it  is 
very  ingenious,  but  by  no  means  ingenuous.  The  bill 
was  passed  to  give  United  States  authorities,  both  civil  and 
military,  administrative  and  judicial,  full  cognizance  of 
private  injuries  to  person  and  property,  whether  of  a  civil 
or  criminal  character,  suffered  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
several  States  at  the  hands  of  residents  thereof.  It  is  impos- 
sible, in  a  single  sentence,  to  express  the  entire  scope  of  the 
measure,  so  far-reaching  and  in  some  respects  unlimited  are 
its  provisions.  Guided  by  the  above  definition,  however, 
the  act  will  now  receive  consideration  in  both  its  abstract 
and  relative  bearings.  For  this  purpose  the  main  topic 
will  be  divided  into  three  minor  ones — namely : 

I.  The  General  Character  and  Constitutionality  of  the 
Act. 

II.  Action  taken  under  the  Law. 

III.  The  Politic  Considerations  of  the  Scheme. 

I.  THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  CONSTITUTIONALITY 

OF  THE  ACT. 

The  point  which  first  suggests  itself  for  examination  in 
the  outset  of  this  discussion  is  the  real  relation,  if  any,  sus- 
tained by  this  measure  to  the  Fourteenth  amendment.  The 
act  in  question  never  has  and  can  in  no  way  be  assumed 
to  supplement  any  portion  of  this  article  of  our  organic  law 
except  the  first  section  thereof.  Of  this  there  will  be  no 
dispute  whatever.  True,  the  second  section  of  the  law  pre- 
sumes to  protect  persons  in  the  exercise  of  the  elective  fran- 
chise. This  privilege,  however,  was  not  conferred  upon 
the  prior  slave  or  any  portion  of  our  population  by  the 
Fourteenth  amendment.  Punishment  was  provided  by  that 
article  for  the  denial  of  the  right  to  vote  by  any  State  to  its 
citizens,  but  the  right  itself  was  not  thereby  secured.  This 
fact  appeared  when  the  constitutional  amendments  were 
27  • 


3l8         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

under  consideration.  With  the  understanding,  then,  that 
the  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  is  the  only 
portion  of  that  article  to  which  this  law  was  assumed  to  be 
supplemental,  the  truth  of  that  assumption  will  now  be  con- 
sidered. Does  the  act  bear  a  legitimate  relation  to  even  this 
one  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  ?  It  does  not. 

The  first  eight  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  embracing  what  is  commonly  known  as  the 
Bill  of  Rights,  only  operated  to  protect  citizens,  in  respect 
to  the  civil  rights  therein  enumerated,  against  the  action 
of  the  General  Government  of  the  United  States.  These 
amendments  in  no  way  whatever  bound  the  several  States. 
When  the  blacks  were  emancipated  the  hostile  position  of 
their  former  owners  necessitated  a  measure  to  protect  them 
in  their  civil  rights.  For  this  end  the  civil  rights  bill  ex- 
amined in  the  chapter  on  Reconstruction  was  adopted.  Its 
constitutionality  was  gravely  doubted.  The  chapter  just 
referred  to  sustained  this  opinion.  Acting  upon  this  doubt, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  blacks,  as  well  as  every 
other  element  of  our  population,  in  respect  to  their  civil 
rights,  against  State  infringement,  as  the  first  eight  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution  did  against  the  action  of  the 
General  Government,  the  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth 
Article  was  devised.  What  is  this  section  ?  Let  it  speak 
for  itself: 

"ARTICLE  XIV.,  SECTION  i.  All  persons  born  or  natural- 
ized in  the  United  States,  and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction 
thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State 
wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any 
law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  cit- 
izens of  the  United  States ;  nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any 
person  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of 
law,  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the 
equal  protection  of  the  laws." 

This  is  not  only  plain  English,  but,  so  far  as  it  contains 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  319 

legal  or  quasi  legal  terms,  it  makes  use  of  those  the  mean- 
ing of  which  has  been  for  a  long  time  fully  adjudicated. 
The  first  sentence  merely  declares  citizenship.  The  re- 
maining portion  of  the  section,  stating  it  very  briefly,  sim- 
ply says  that  no  State  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immu- 
nities of  citizenship — that  is,  the  rights  of  life,  liberty  and 
property — nor  deny  to  any  of  its  inhabitants  the  equal  pro- 
tection of  the  laws.  The  entire  subject-matter  last  above 
referred  to  is  merely  an  inhibition  upon  a  State.  What  is 
a  "State"?  As  already  intimated,  this  is  a  term  of  no 
doubtful  meaning.  It  is  a  quasi  corporation  for  the  pur- 
pose of  administering  government  within  well-defined  ter- 
ritorial limits.  It  acts,  moreover,  solely  through  its  legally- 
constituted  legislature  or  its  people  in  general  convention  legally 
assembled.  The  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment 
places  certain  inhibitions  upon  the  several  States.  Bearing 
in  mind  the  sentence  above  italicized,  the  only  way  in  which 
a  State  can  violate  this  constitutional  provision  is  by  its  legis- 
lative or  conventional  acts.  But  supposing  a  State  promul- 
gates such  legislative  or  conventional  acts  as  in  their  nature 
contravene  this  provision  of  our  organic  law,  what  then? 
Such  acts  are  an  absolute  dead  letter.  The  national  Con- 
stitution is  the  paramount  law  of  the  land  ;  it  annuls  and 
renders  nugatory,  in  fact,  the  legislative  or  conventional 
acts  of  every  State  which  are  repugnant  thereto.  It  needs 
— neither,  relatively  speaking,  can  it  have — any  special  en- 
forcement. It  contains  its  own  coercive  power.  Our  con- 
stitutional law,  in  fact,  renders  the  mere  existence  of  this 
provision  an  enforcement  thereof. 

With  the  belief  that  the  portion  of  the  first  section  of  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  now  under  discussion  needs  no  en- 
forcement, the  question  is  pertinent  in  this  connection, 
Does  the  bill  now  under  consideration  contain  provisions 
for  such  enforcement,  superfluous  though  they  may  be?  In 
no  respect  whatever.  This  section,  as  already  seen,  com- 


320         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

mands  a  "State."  The  act  above  mentioned  deals  directly 
with  individuals.  Every  interdiction  it  contains  runs  against 
individual  action,  and  every  penalty  it  imposes  attaches  to 
personal  wrong-doing.  It  deals  with  a  "State"  in  no 
respect  whatever,  whereas  the  first  prohibitory  portion  of 
the  Fourteenth  Article  refers  exclusively  to  such  corpora- 
tions. 

The  irrelevancy  of  this  act  to  the  Fourteenth  amendment 
seen  to  be  apparent,  its  actual  provisions  will  now  be  con- 
sidered. As  stated  in  the  opening  remarks  of  this  discus- 
sion, the  law  in  question  assumes  to  give  the  executive  and 
judicial  departments  of  the  General  Government  jurisdic- 
tion of  private  wrongs  resulting  from  the  relations  of 
the  citizens  of  any  several,  separate  State  of  the  Union.  In 
other  words,  the  act  assumes  to  confer  special  powers  in 
this  direction  upon  the  national  executive  and  judiciary  of 
the  following  description — namely  : 

EXECUTIVE  POWERS. 

The  right  of  the  President  under  certain  circumstances, 
upon  his  own  suggestion  alone,  to  call  out  and  employ  the 
militia  in  time  of  peace. 

The  right,  in  time  of  peace,  with  unlimited  discretion,  to 
employ  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  country  for  the  pre- 
vention of  private  wrongs. 

The  right,  in  time  of  peace,  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus. 

JUDICIAL  POWERS. 

The  right  of  the  United  States  courts  to  take  cognizance 
of  private  wrongs  committed  within  State  jurisdiction. 

The  further  examination  of  this  subject,  in  this  imme- 
diate connection,  will  be  considered  in  the  following 
order  : 

i.  The  constitutional  right  of  Congress,  if  any,  to  con- 
fer the  powers  above  described. 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  $21 

2.  Miscellaneous  remarks  upon  the  provisions  of  the  act 
in  general. 

i.  The  first  and  second  of  the  executive  powers  above 
defined  are  contained  in  the  third  section  of  the  act.  Con- 
fining attention  for  the  present  to  the  first  named,  this  sec- 
tion of  the  law,  after  enumerating  certain  conditions  of 
things,  authorizes  the  President,  of  his  own  motion,  to  call 
out  and  employ  the  militia  for  the  suppression  of  disturb- 
ances within  State  limits.  The  end  sought  by  the  exercise 
of  this  power  is  impartially  and  fairly  stated  in  the  words 
above  italicized.  Of  this  there  can  be  no  dispute.  Con- 
gress, therefore,  in  assuming  to  confer  this  power  upon  the 
President,  seeks  to  enforce  its  legislation  within  the  terri- 
torial limits  of  the  several  States.  As  has  been  repeatedly 
shown  in  prior  discussions  of  this  treatise,  such  measures 
of  Congress,  in  order  to  be  legitimate,  must  find  a  sanction 
in  our  national  charter,  in  our  organic  law.  The  Tenth 
Article  of  the  original  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
forbids  the  General  Government  to  enforce  its  legislation 
within  the  several  States  except  in  special  cases  provided 
therein.  Is  there  any  such  special  provision  in  the  Con- 
stitution authorizing  Congress  to  empower  the  President  to 
call  out  and  employ  the  militia  in  the  manner  indicated  by 
this  first-named  executive  power — the  suppression  of  disturb- 
ances within  State  jurisdiction  ?  There  is  not.  The  only 
portions  of  the  Constitution  under  which  Congress  can 
authorize  the  President  to  employ  the  militia  are  the  fif- 
teenth paragraph  of  the  eighth  section  of  the  First  Article 
and  the  fourth  section  of  the  Fourth  Article — namely : 

Congress  shall  have  power — 

"To  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the 
laws  of  the  Union,  suppress  insurrections  and  repel  inva- 
sions." 

"The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in 
this  Union  a  republican  form  of  government ;  and  shall 

02 


322          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

protect  each  of  them  against  invasion,  and  on  application 
of  the  legislature,  or  of  the  executive  (when  the  legislature 
cannot  be  convened),  against  domestic  violence." 

It  is  perfectly  apparent  that  the  present  act  does  not  au- 
thorize the  President  to  employ  the  militia  "  to  execute 
the  laws  of  the  Union"  or  "repel  invasions."  There  is 
no  law  of  the  Union  which  the  act  assumes  or  declares  to 
have  been  violated,  except  a  portion  of  the  Fourteenth 
Article  of  our  Constitution ;  and  this  assumption,  as  will 
hereafter  appear,  is  entirely  unfounded.  As  to  the  repelling 
of  "invasions,"  the  simple  meaning  of  the  term  refutes 
the  idea  that  this  power  was  created  for  that  purpose.  An 
"invasion"  can  only  come  from  without;  its  existence 
can  in  no  way  be  predicated  upon  the  action  of  the  resi- 
dent population.  This  executive  power  in  reference  to 
the  militia,  moreover,  as  conferred  by  Congress,  although 
at  first  thought  it  may  seem  doubtful,  finds  no  warrant 
in  the  constitutional  authority  to  institute  such  action  to 
"suppress  insurrections."  The  word  "insurrection"  in 
this  connection  contemplated  acts  of  violence  against  the 
United  States,  against  the  authority  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, and  not  against  the  laws  or  authority  of  a  sepa- 
rate State.  This  point  needs  no  discussion ;  the  proposi- 
tion is  fully  substantiated  by  the  fourth  section  of  the 
Fourth  Article,  above  cited,  wherein  the  only  cases  in 
which  the  General  Government  shall  lend  its  aid  for  pro- 
tection "  against  domestic  violence,"  against  disturbances 
within  State  limits,  are  plainly  expressed — namely,  "On 
the  application  of  the  legislature  or  the  executive"  of  such 
States. 

This  first  executive  power,  moreover,  is  not  sanctioned 
by  the  fourth  section  of  the  Fourth  Article  as  above  quoted. 
The  law  in  question  does  not  presume  to  authorize  the 
President  to  employ  the  militia  "to  guarantee  to  the  States 
a  republican  form  of  government;"  and  the  closing  por- 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  323 

tion  of  the  section  places  an  actual  inhibition  upon  such 
use  of  the  militia,  except  upon  application  of  the  legislature 
or  executive  of  any  of  the  States. 

•These  provisions  of  the  Constitution  have  been  reviewed 
in  connection  with  this  first  executive  power  of  the  act  more 
for  completeness'  sake  than  on  account  of  any  claim  that 
this  power  was  sanctioned  by  these  provisions.  The  por- 
tion of  the  Constitution  invoked  by  Congress  to  legalize 
its  action  as  to  this  power  is  the  first  section  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment.  The  scheme  was  specious,  but  is  in  no 
way  tenable.  This  portion  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  simply 
says,  in  substance,  that  no  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any 
law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  its 
citizens,  nor  illegally  deprive  them  of  the  rights  of  life, 
liberty  and  property,  "  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its 
jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws."  This  inhibi- 
tion, let  it  be  remembered,  runs  against  a  "State,"  and 
with  this  fact  in  mind  the  question  put  in  an  earlier  part  of 
this  chapter  requires  repetition — namely,  How  does  a 
"  State  "  act  ?  In  what  manner  can  it  violate  the  first  sec- 
tion of  the  Fourteenth  amendment  ?  In  what  way  can  it 
deny  to  its  inhabitants  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws? 
Only,  as  already  shown,  through  the  official  action  of  its 
legislature  or  the  expressed  will  of  its  people  in  general 
convention  legally  assembled.  A  "State"  is  neither  a 
mob,  a  company  of  Ku-klux  nor  an  association  of  what 
are  vulgarly  termed  "  carpet-baggers."  It  can  only  act,  can 
only  deny  to  its  citizens  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws, 
if  legal  authority  and  precedent  is  to  be  our  guide,  in  the 
two  methods  above  described.  Congress,  however,  seeks  to 
throw  the  mantle  of  the  Constitution  around  this  first  exe- 
cutive power  now  under  consideration  by  declaring  that 
such  and  such  circumstances — personal  quarrels,  personal 
injuries,  private  wrongs,  violations  of  State  ordinances,  etc. 
etc. — "  shall  be  deemed  a  denial  by  a  State  to  its  citizens  of 


324         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  equal  protection  of  the  laws."  In  assuming  this  position 
Congress  oversteps  the  bounds  of  legislation  and  trenches 
upon  the  field  of  judicial  power.  Congress  is  not  a  court 
except  for  the  trial  of  impeachments.  It  can  enact  laws  for 
the  United  States,  and  legally  declare  that  such  and  such  acts 
shall  be  deemed  a  violation  of  those  laws,  but  it  cannot  step 
into  the  territorial  limits  of  a  State  and  legally  say  that  such 
and  such  a  condition  of  things  shall  be  deemed  such  and  such 
action  on  the  part  of  a  State.  The  mouth  of  a  State  is  its 
legislature  or  general  convention,  and  Congress  is  powerless 
to  make  a  gang  of  desperadoes  its  legitimate  spokesmen. 
If  we  admit  the  position,  where  shall  we  stop?  If  Con- 
gress can  legally  say  that  local  acts  of  violence  within  State 
limits  shall  be  deemed  a  denial  by  such  State  and  its  in- 
habitants of  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,  why  can  it 
not  put  a  similar  interpretation  upon  the  refusal  of  a  man 
to  let  another  fish  in  his  stream  ? 

The  only  proper  deduction  to  be  made  from  this  brief 
discussion  is,  that  the  first  executive  power  raised  by  the 
act  violates  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  au- 
thorizing the  President  thereof  to  employ  the  militia  within 
State  limits  upon  his  own  motion  in  a  time  of  general  peace, 
while  our  national  charter  sanctions  such  action  only  in 
cases  of  insurrection  against  the  General  Government,  in- 
vasion from  without,  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  of  the 
Union,  and,  upon  request  of  a  State  legislature  or  execu- 
tive, for  the  suppression  of  domestic  violence. 

In  reference  to  the  second  executive  power  very  much  the 
same  line  of  reasoning  applies  as  that  above  dismissed.  This 
power  is  raised  by  the  same  section  of  the  law  as  the  first 
(the  third  section),  and  they  constitute,  in  fact,  an  alternative 
from  which  the  President  is  permitted  to  choose.  In  other 
words,  under  the  third  section  of  the  law,  certain  conditions 
of  things  hereinbefore  enumerated  having  been  deemed  by 
Congress  a  denial  by  a  State  to  its  citizens  of  the  equal 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  325 

protection  of  the  laws,  the  President  may  either  call  out 
and  employ  the  militia,  or  summon  the  regular  land  and 
naval  forces  of  the  country  to  counteract  this  alleged  denial 
of  the  protection  of  the  laws — that  is,  to  suppress  domestic 
violence,  to  secure  the  prevention  of  private  wrongs.  The 
same  argument  which  proved  that  the  first  executive  power 
found  no  constitutional  warrant  under  the  provisions  of  the 
Fourteenth  amendment  serves,  in  every  respect,  a  similar 
purpose  in  this  connection.  Repetition  of  that  discussion 
is  unnecessary,  and  the  only  inquiry  here  pertinent,  there- 
fore, is,  Does  the  second  executive  power  of  the  act  find  a 
sanction  in  any  other  portion  of  the  Constitution  ?  As  this 
power,  for  the  same  reasons  stated  in  the  discussion  above 
referred  to,  looks  in  vain  to  the  portions  of  our  organic  law 
quoted  in  the  opening  remarks  of  this  chapter  for  constitu- 
tional authority,  and  as  these  are  the  only  other  provisions 
bearing  either  directly  or  indirectly  upon  the  subject,  the 
answer  to  this  question  is  found  in  a  statement  of  the  con- 
stitutional provisions  which  authorize  the  President  to  em- 
ploy military  and  naval  force.  This  answer,  moreover,  is 
in  no  way  ambiguous.  It  is  a"  simple  question  of  war  and 
peace,  and  the  second  section  of  the  Second  Article,  as  it 
is  the  only  provision  conferring  authority  upon  the  execu- 
tive to  employ  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  country, 
furnishes  a  key  to  the  entire  situation.  This  section  de- 
clares that  "the  President  shall  be  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia 
of  the  several  States  when  called  into  the  actual  service  of 
the  United  States."  Of  the  meaning  of  this  last  clause  there 
is  no  doubt  whatever.  It  contemplates  a  state  of  open  hos- 
tility against  the  General  Government,  and  not  a  state  of 
insurrection  against  State,  authority — not  a  condition  of  "  do- 
mestic violence. ' ' 

The  second  executive  power  of  the  act,  therefore,  violates 
the  national  charter  in  that  it  authorizes  the  President,  in  a 

28 


326         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

time  of  general  peace,  without  any  restriction,  to  employ 
the  regular  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  country  for  the  pre- 
vention of  private  wrongs  within  State  jurisdiction — for  the 
suppression  of  domestic  violence  ;  whereas  the  Constitution 
sanctions  such  action  only  in  case  of  actual  war  or  to  main- 
tain the  supremacy  of  the  United  States  law.  Let  it  not  be 
said,  in  this  connection,  that  the  act  contemplates  a  main- 
tenance of  such  supremacy  because  it  assumes  to  provide 
for  the  enforcement  of  the  first  section  of  the  Fourteenth 
amendment.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  discussion 
of  the  first  executive  power  it  fully  appeared  that  the  act 
had  no  relevancy  to  this  constitutional  provision — that  this 
portion  of  the  Fourteenth  Article,  indeed,  had  not  been 
violated — for  the  reason  that  said  amendment  deals  entirely 
with  "States,11  while  the  act  is  addressed  solely  to  indi- 
viduals. 

The  third  executive  power — and  one,  in  many  respects, 
more  dangerous  than  the  other  two — is  found  in  the  fourth 
section  of  the  law.  It  is  the  power  conferred  upon  the 
President,  in  a  time  of  peace,  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus.  The  entire  history  of  American  legislation 
furnishes  no  instance  of  such  open  departure  from  both  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  our  organic  law  as  is  afforded  in  this 
fourth  section  of  the  act.  This  bulwark  of  English  liberty, 
which  was  wrung  from  the  unwilling  hand  of  Charles  II., 
transported  as  a  sacred  trust  across  the  Atlantic  by  the 
pioneers  of  the  American  republic,  and  declared  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  to  be  a  principle  of  American 
freedom  which  should  ever  be  held  inviolate  except  in  cases 
of  actual  rebellion  or  invasion,  is  here  ruthlessly  set  aside 
without  any  show  of  either  reason  or  legal  precedent. 
This  section,  indeed,  strikes  a  direct  and  terrible  blow 
against  the  very  foundation  of  American  and  republican 
institutions.  The  diabolical  acts,  and  the  dastardly  charac- 
ter of  their  authors,  against  which  the  provisions  of  this 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  327 

section  are  aimed,  furnish  no  excuse  for  its  adoption.  It 
was  a  grave  sacrifice  of  principle,  an  establishment  of  a 
most  dangerous  precedent.  Two  wrongs  will  not  make  one 
right.  If  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  may  be  suspended  in 
time  of  peace  for  one  purpose,  by  what  criterion  are  the 
exigencies  to  be  defined  in  which  it  shall  not  be  withdrawn  ? 
Where  is  the  boundary-line  ?  At  what  point  shall  we  stop 
when  once  we  have  overstepped  the  limits  of  constitutional 
warrant  ?  It  is  of  course  alleged  that  this  section  of  the 
law,  like  the  remaining  ones,  is  sanctioned  by  our  national 
charter.  This  position  we  will  now  proceed  to  combat. 

The  Constitution  provides  that  "the  privilege  of  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended  unless  when, 
in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may  re- 
quire it."  As  Congress  could  not  even  assume  with  any 
show  of  reason  to  clothe  this  fourth  section  of  the  act  with 
constitutional  sanction  by  alleging  an  "invasion"  it  pro- 
ceeds to  inaugurate  a  "rebellion"  by  force  of  legislative 
enactment.  Of  the  popular  and  legal  meaning  of  the  word 
"rebellion"  there  is  no  dispute.  It  is  a  total  renounce- 
ment of  allegiance  to  governmental  authority,  evidenced 
by  acts  of  open  hostility  or  war.  The  national  Consti- 
tution is  the  fundamental  law,  strictly  speaking,  of  the 
United  States,  and  not  of  any  one  of  the  several  States. 
This  proposition  must  not  be  misconstrued.  It  is  not 
intended  for  an  assertion  that  a  State  constitution  repug- 
nant to  our  national  charter  can  have  a  legal  existence — 
that  the  organic  law  of  any  one  State  can  override  that  of 
the  United  States.  It  is  merely  intended  to  convey  the 
idea  that  the  provisions  of  our  national  Constitution  refer 
solely  to  the  General  Government,  to  the  United  States, 
except  in  cases  where  the  States  receive  particular  mention. 
The  constitutional  provision  above  cited,  therefore,  means 
that  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be 
suspended  except  in  cases  of  rebellion  against  the  General 


328          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Government  or  invasion  thereof.  It  in  no  way  contemplates 
a  rebellion  against  State  authority.  Congress  makes  an 
explicit  admission  of  this  statement  in  the  words  of  the 
fourth  section  of  the  law,  which  declare  that  combinations 
and  conspiracies  against  State  authority,  etc.  etc.  shall  be 
deemed  a  rebellion  against  the  United  States.  Recalling, 
moreover,  the  meaning  of  the  term  "rebellion,"  this  con- 
stitutional provision  further  means  that  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  shall  not  be  suspended  (saying  nothing  of  invasion) 
except  when  offending  parties  are  arrayed  in  open  hostility 
against  the  General  Government. 

The  inquiry  is  pertinent  in  this  connection,  Can  Congress 
legally  declare  that  to  be  a  rebellion  against  the  United 
States  which  the  Constitution  thereof  implicitly  says  is  not 
such  rebellion?  Upon  the  answer  to  this  inquiry  hinges 
the  constitutionality  of  the  section  of  the  act  now  under 
consideration.  The  answer  is  an  emphatic  negative.  It 
cannot.  Propositions  stated  in  a  prior  connection  are  here 
worthy  of  substantial  repetition.  Congress  is  not  a  court 
except  for  the  trial  of  impeachments.  It  can  legislate,  and 
thereby  enact  laws  for  the  United  States,  but  in  so  doing  it 
is  bound  to  take  the  Constitution  for  a  guide.  It  is  power- 
less to  attach  the  legalizing  force  of  that  instrument  to 
enactments  which  the  instrument  itself  implicitly  declares 
to  be  illegal.  It  is  powerless  to  put  a  meaning  upon  the 
instrument  which  the  words  thereof  expressly  deny.  It  is 
powerless  to  declare  that  the  existence  of  private  wrongs 
within  State  jurisdiction  is  in  fact  a  rebellion  against  the 
United  States,  when  the  Constitution  expressly  says  that 
such  rebellion  only  exists  in  cases  of  open  hostility  to  the 
authority  of  the  General  Government.  Yet  this  is  precisely 
what  Congress  has  assumed  to  do  in  the  fourth  section  of 
the  act.  It  has  addressed  itself  to  the  task  of  making  re- 
bellion by  legislation.  It  has  assumed  to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  the  character  of  private  wrongs  against  State  authority. 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  329 

It  has  arrogated  to  itself  the  prerogative  of  a  legal  tribunal 
— of  judicial  power.  The  provisions  of  the  fourth  as  well 
as  the  first  section  of  the  act  are  measures  of  precisely 
similar  import  as  the  act  of  Congress  of  July  12,  1870, 
which  the  Supreme  Court  has  declared  unconstitutional 
and  void,  as  seen  in  the  concluding  remarks  of  the  next 
preceding  chapter.  The  decision  of  the  court  is  peculiarly 
pertinent  to  the  matter  now  at  issue.  Congress  here,  as  in 
the  act  above  named,  overstepped  the  limits  of  legislative 
power  and  essayed  the  office  of  a  court  of  judicature. 

The  same  inquiries  which  closed  the  examination  of  the 
first  executive  power  of  the  law  are  equally  appropriate  in 
this  connection.  They  may  all  be  merged  into  one  single 
interrogatory — namely:  If  we  once  establish  the  preced- 
ent of  allowing  Congress  to  forcibly  throw  the  mantle  of 
the  Constitution  around  measures  which  that  instrument 
declares  to  be  beyond  its  sanction,  where  is  the  watch- 
man who  shall  either  possess  the  right  to  call  for  a  stay 
of  such  proceedings  or  the  power  to  enforce  his  com- 
mand ? 

The  third  executive  power  of  the  act  violates  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  in  that  it  makes  that  a  rebel- 
lion which  is  not  a  rebellion,  and  authorizes  the  President 
to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  a  time  of  peace, 
whereas  our  organic  law  sanctions  such  an  expedient  only 
in  cases  of  open  hostility  or  actual  war. 

In  respect  to  the  judicial  power  conferred  by  the  act  very 
little  need  be  said.  It  is  not  such  an  unblushing  violation 
of  our  organic  law  as  the  executive  powers  which  have  just 
passed  from  consideration,  yet  it  is  equally  absolute.  The 
jurisdiction  of  United  States  courts,  by  force  of  the  second 
section  of  the  Third  Article  of  the  Constitution,  legally 
attaches  to  all  causes  arising  under  the  "laws"  of  the 
United  States.  The  act  in  question,  speaking  in  the  ab- 
stract, is  undoubtedly  such  a  law.  But  the  vital  question 
28* 


33O  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLS7VCS. 

here  presents  itself,  Is  the  law  sanctioned  by  constitutional 
warrant  ?  A  statement  of  the  character  of  this  law  as  con- 
nected with  this  judicial  power  furnishes  a  guide  for  the 
solution  of  this  inquiry.  The  act  in  this  respect  assumes 
to  confer  full  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  of  private 
wrongs,  of  local  injuries  to  person  and  property — of  acts  of 
domestic  violence,  in  short,  suffered  within  State  limits — upon 
the  courts  of  the  United  States.  Congress  here  ventured 
upon  an  entirely  new  field  of  legislation.  Never  in  the 
history  of  our  country  has  a  legislative  act  assumed  to  con- 
fer such  jurisdiction  upon  our  national  tribunals.  The 
entire  spirit  and  tenor  of  our  organic  law,  the  decisions  of 
the  Supreme  Court  thereunder,  as  well  as  the  genius  and 
spirit  of  our  institutions,  absolutely  prohibit  such  enact- 
ments. The  Tenth  Article  of  the  original  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  requires  citation  in  this  connection — 
namely:  "The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States 
by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are 
reserved  to  the  States  respectively  or  to  the  people."  In 
no  portion  of  our  national  charter  is  the  power  to  take 
cognizance  of  private  wrongs  within  State  limits — of  domes- 
tic violence — conferred  upon  the  General  Government  or 
prohibited  by  it  to  the  States.  This  prerogative,  conse- 
quently, rests  solely  in  the  hands  of  the  several  States  or 
the  people.  Congress,  moreover,  by  the  words  of  the  act 
itself,  admits  that  such  has  been  not  only  established  usage, 
but  acknowledged  law,  down  to  the  adoption  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment.  It  seeks,  however,  to  legalize  this 
judicial  power  under  that  article  of  our  organic  law  in  the 
same  manner  in  which  it  essayed  to  clothe  the  executive 
powers  of  the  act  with  constitutional  sanction.  The  attempt, 
as  already  shown  in  the  case  of  the  executive  powers,  was 
entirely  extra-judicial  and  unsound.  It  is  equally  so  in 
that  of  the  judicial  power  now  under  consideration.  The 
argument  above  referred  to  needs  no  repetition  in  this  con- 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  331 

nection.  It  is  in  every  particular,  however,  entirely  appli- 
cable to  the  question  here  at  .issue,  and  may  be  referred  to 
as  occasion  suggests.  Congress  here,  as  there,  assumed  to 
declare  the  acts  of  individuals  the  acts  of  a  State,  and 
thereby,  by  sheer  force  of  ordinary  legislation,  establish 
the  fact  that  certain  citizens  were  denied  by  the  States  in 
which  they  were  resident  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws. 
It  abandoned  its  legislative  prerogative  and  unwarrantably 
essayed  the  exercise  of  judicial  power. 

The  judicial  power  of  the  act,  therefore,  violates  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  reason  of  the  fact  that, 
like  the  executive  powers  of  the  law,  it  illegally  extends,  or 
rather  assumes  to  extend,  the  operation  of  the  Fourteenth 
amendment  from  States  to  individuals,  and  confers  a  juris- 
diction upon  the  national  tribunals  which,  as  the  law  itself 
is  repugnant,  is  derogatory  of  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  letter 
of  our  organic  code. 

2.  A  very  little  miscellaneous  comment  upon  this  scheme 
of  legislation  is  now  in  order.  For  the  support  of  this 
measure  was  adduced  the  specious  and  very  stubborn  argu- 
ment of  necessity.  It  was,  in  other  words,  the  plea  of  self- 
preservation,  and  one  well  calculated  to  procure  for  the  law 
the  indorsement  of  every  loyal  and  patriotic  heart.  For 
the  dastardly  and  cowardly  offences  of  the  Ku-klux  Klan 
in  themselves,  in  the  abstract,  per  se,  or  for  the  authors 
thereof — although  the  latter  can  plead  a  reason,  but  not  an 
excuse — this  chapter  offers  no  defence  whatever.  Viewing 
them  in  their  isolated  relations,  disconnected  from  all  con- 
comitant circumstances,  there  are  no  words  too  severe  to 
adequately  define  their  wickedness.  The  gravity  of  the 
offences,  and  the  moral  turpitude  exhibited  by  their  perpe- 
trators, furnished  a  strong  argument  for  resorting  to  almost 
any  means  to  stay  the  tide  of  domestic  violence  which  de- 
vastated certain  localities  of  the  South  in  the  spring  of 
1871.  It  was  an  argument,  moreover,  which  to  the  un- 


332         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

thinking  masses  of  our  loyal  population,  engrossed  with  the 
cares  and  anxieties  of  business-life,  would  very  naturally 
appear  to  be  sound  and  wholesome.  Stripped  of  all  col- 
lateral considerations,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  question, 
in  such  connections,  might  seem  to  present  but  one  alter- 
native— namely,  either  permit  the  Ku-klux  Klans  of  the 
South  to  work  its  total  destruction,  or  else  employ  the 
strong  arm  of  the  General  Government  to  compel  them  to 
stay  their  hand.  It  was  not  an  argument,  however,  which 
should  have  commended  itself  to  the  judgment  of  men 
whose  sole  business  was  to  guard  and  promote  the  welfare 
of  the  body  politic.  It  was  not  an  argument  which  should 
have  received  the  indorsement  of  deliberate  legislation. 
It  was  not  an  argument  which  could  have  possibly  met  the 
approval  of  statesmen, 

The  American  people  live,  or  are  supposed  to  live,  under 
a  Government  of  fixed  and  determinate  laws.  The  munici- 
pal code  of  this  Government  is  shaped,  or  is  supposed  to  be 
shaped,  by  the  letter  and  spirit  of  our  national  Constitution. 
It  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  possible  import  that  the  last- 
named  proposition  shall  receive  not  even  a  constructive 
violation.  Every  successive  act  which  tends  in  that  direc- 
tion opens  more  widely  a  door  through  which  anarchy  will 
ultimately  enter,  and  consign  the  cause  of  constitutional 
government  to  a  forced  and  unmerited  oblivion.  Every 
law,  indeed,  which  cannot  draw  to  itself  the  complete  and 
unqualified  sanction  of  our  national  charter  actually  offers  a 
premium  upon  just  such  lawlessness  as  the  present  act  of 
Congress  was  devised  to  prevent,  and  establishes  a  prece- 
dent which  must  surely  compel  law  to  give  place  to  force.  It 
cannot  be  otherwise.  In  their  fixity  lies  the  safety  of  all 
forms  of  government.  This  fixity  is  sought  in  despotic 
governments  by  making  the  will  of  the  sovereign  absolute, 
without  any  right  of  appeal.  It  is  sought  in  constitutional 
governments  by  making  the  governmental  charter,  the  or- 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  333 

ganic  law,  the  exclusive  guide  of  governmental  action. 
Qualify  the  will  of  a  monarch  in  one  direction,  depart  from 
the  provisions  of  a  constitution  in  one  instance,  and  who 
shall  presume  to  hold  that  similar  action  shall  not  be  taken 
in  another?  Where  is  the  watchman  who  shall  have  the 
sagacity  to  determine  when  the  ultimate  limit  of  such  de- 
parture shall  have  been  reached,  and,  more  difficult  still, 
will  he  be  respected  when  he  speaks  ? 

From  the  foregoing  principles  the  act  was  a  total  and 
unqualified  departure.  It  ignored  them  in  every  important 
particular.  The  question  is  too  plain  to  admit  of  doubt. 
So  long  as  the  people  of  this  country  assume  to  live  under 
a  constitutional  form  of  government,  just  so  long  must  they 
see  to  it  that  their  organic  law  is  preserved  inviolate,  or 
else  incur  the  penalties,  already  stated,  which  will  invaria- 
bly attach  to  its  violation.  So  long  as  our  national  charter 
confers  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  local,  private  wrongs 
upon  the  State  tribunals,  and  vests  in  State  authority  the 
exclusive  supervision  of  acts  of  domestic  violence,  just  so 
long  should  those  prerogatives  be  exclusively  exercised  by 
these  local  powers.  The  only  legitimate  way  to  here  estab- 
lish a  new  system  or  extend  the  old  is  by  an  amendment  to 
our  national  Constitution. 

Whether  or  not  it  is  desirable,  at  this  epoch  of  our  his- 
tory, that  the  General  Government  should  have  its  author- 
ity extended  over  many  institutions  of  comparatively  local 
import  which  it  is  now  powerless  to  control,  is  one  of  the 
gravest  questions  which  the  American  people  are  called 
upon  to  solve.  The  inquiry  is,  in  this  connection,  neither 
denied  nor  affirmed.  No  portion  of  the  preceding  discus- 
sion, moreover,  should  receive  such  an  interpretation. 
The  numerical  and  territorial  proportions  of  this  republic 
have  been  enormously  extended  since  the  formation  of  our 
original  organic  law.  Subsequent  to  that  period  the  num- 
ber of  our  States  has  nearly  trebled  ;  our  population  has  in- 


334         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

creased  from  four  to  forty  millions  of  people ;  Cuba,  like  a 
ripe  apple,  is  ready  to  drop  into  our  waiting  hands ;  and 
British  America,  under  the  irrepressible  force  of  natural 
law,  will  ultimately  seek  to  link  her  destinies  with  the 
young  giant  of  the  Western  World.  In  view  of  these  pres- 
ent and  prospective  facts  the  necessity  of  a  more  centralized 
government  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  treated  with 
simple  silence.  Upon  the  horizon  of  our  almost  immediate 
future,  indeed,  the  hand  of  progress  is  tracing  the  inquiry, 
For  large  masses  of  people,  scattered  over  wide  territorial 
limits,  are  republican  governments  a  success  ?  The  affirma- 
tion of  this  interrogatory  is  the  dearest  wish  of  every  Ameri- 
can heart.  With  the  future  of  the  United  States  comes  the 
solution  of  the  problem,  and  for  that  solution  the  nations 
of  Christendom  anxiously  wait. 

In  view  of  our  delicate  position — and  that  it  is  delicate 
no  thinking  mind  can  deny — the  paramount  duty  of  the 
American  people  is  to  inflexibly  pursue  the  course  which, 
as  a  republic,  will  alone  assure  us  present  safety  and  future 
existence — namely  protect  the  fixity  of  our  form  of  govern- 
ment. The  attainment  of  this  end  is  possible  only  by  giv- 
ing the  most  complete  and  cheerful  obedience  to  the  man- 
date— Stand  by  the  letter  of  our  organic  law.  If  exigencies 
require  that  our  General  Government  should  be  endowed 
with  more  ample  prerogatives,  change  our  national  charter 
and  let  the  needed  power  be  conferred,-  but  by  all  means 
cease  the  dangerous  attempts  which  the  act  now  under  dis- 
cussion strikingly  illustrates,  and  which,  for  the  last  four 
years,  have  followed  each  other  in  too  close  succession,  of 
endeavoring  to  smuggle  within  the  limits  of  the  Constitu- 
tion schemes  of  legislation  which  the  simple  words  of  that 
instrument  declare  beyond  its  sanction.  Upon  all  other 
questions  let  the  utmost  latitude  of  opinion  be  allowed,  but 
let  him  who  seeks  to  foist  upon  our  statute-book  a  law  which 
defeats  if  but  a  letter  of  our  organic  code  be  instantly  re- 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  335 

tired  from  the  public  service  and  counted  among  the  vilest 
traitors  of  the  republic.  Abide  by  the  Constitution,  and  the 
republic  lives ;  destroy  it,  and  it  will  soon  sleep  in  the  em- 
brace of  death. 

Looking  more  particularly  to  the  argument  of  self-preser- 
vation which  was  urged  in  support  of  this  act,  very  little 
need  be  said.  Neither  the  force  nor  the  truth  of  the  abstract 
argument  is  denied.  It  is  not  pertinent,  however,  to  the 
present  discussion.  Congress  in  the  spring  of  1871  was  no 
more  called  upon  to  adopt  schemes  of  legislation  founded 
upon  the  policy  of  self-preservation  than  it  was  to  declare 
war  upon  British  America.  The  destruction  of  the  Amer- 
ican republic  threatened  by  three  thousand  Ku-klux !  It 
had  just  crushed  to  atoms  a  rebellion  which  counted  eight 
millions  of  supporters.  It  had  just  crushed  that  rebellion, 
moreover,  simply  because  it  violated  the  national  Constitu- 
tion— simply  because,  in  principle,  though  with  a  degree 
of  moral  turpitude  incomparable  it  is  true,  it  furthered 
schemes  which,  like  the  present  act  of  Congress,  tended  to 
the  utter  demolition  of  civil  authority.  ^ 

There  is  a  politic  argument  pertinent  in  this  connection, 
but  as  that  view  of  the  subject  has  been  made  a  distinct  and 
the  final  sub-subject  of  the  present  chapter,  it  will  only,  for 
completeness'  sake,  here  receive  a  passing  mention. 

This  miscellaneous  comment  upon  the  general  provisions 
of  the  act  will  be  concluded  with  the  single  remark  that 
the  measure  is  characteristic  of  present  tendencies,  upon 
the  slightest  provocation,  to  supplant  civil  with  military 
authority.  From  the  spring  of  1861  to  the  opening  of  the 
year  1865  such  a  policy  was  often  indispensable.  But  for 
the  last  seven  years  ive  hare  had  peace,  and  to  civil  govern- 
ment belongs  the  right  to  reign  exclusive  and  supreme. 
The  act  now  under  consideration,  however,  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  Congress  at  the  time  of  its  adoption  thought 
itself  again  traversing  the  summer  of  1863,  and  the  military 


336         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

interference  on  the  part  of  the  General  Government  with 
the  prerogatives  of  Governor  Palmer  at  the  time  of  the 
Chicago  fire  that  General  Grant  still  considered  himself 
on  the  high  way  to  Appomattox. 

II.  ACTION  TAKEN  UNDER  THE  LAW. 

In  respect  to  the  action  taken  under  the  law  nothing  will 
be  said  except  in  the  way  of  narrative,  and  only  the  more 
important  events  will  be  stated. 

On  the  3d  of  May,  1871,  the  President  issued  a  proclama- 
tion defining  his  position  and  views  in  reference  to  the  act 
in  question.  The  first  arrests  in  pursuance  of  the  law  were 
made  May  6,  1871,  in  North  Carolina.  These  were  quickly 
followed,  by  virtue  of  executive  order,  by  others  in  South 
Carolina,  Kentucky,  and,  in  very  small  numbers,  in  a  few 
other  localities  of  the  South.  The  principal  theatre  of 
operation,  however,  has  been  in  North  and  South  Caro- 
lina, about  seven  hundred  arrests  having  been  made  in 
these  two  States,  and  the  prisoners  awarded  a  trial  in  the 
United  States  courts.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  in  all 
cases  the  alleged  criminals  have  been  proved  unqualifiedly 
guilty  of  the  charges  made  against  them,  and,  abstractly 
speaking,  fully  deserving  of  the  penalties  prescribed  by 
the  act.  In  October,  1871,  executive  proclamation  de- 
clared nine  counties  of  South  Carolina  to  be  in  a  state  of 
rebellion,  proclaimed  martial  law  and  suspended  the  privi- 
lege of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  therein.  This  locality, 
at  the  present  writing  (March,  1872),  is  still  subject  to  the 
force  of  the  executive  decree  above  named.  This  privilege 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  however,  by  an  express  pro- 
vision of  the  act,  must  be  restored  at  the  close  of  the  pres- 
ent session  of  Congress. 

III.  THE  POLITIC  CONSIDERATIONS  OF  THE  SCHEME. 
The  concluding  remarks  of  this  chapter  require  very  lit- 
tle extension.     Much  that  was  said  in  the  next  preceding 


FORCE   LEGISLATION.  337 

one  in  reference  to  the  desirability  of  a  complete  and  gen- 
eral amnesty  is  peculiarly  pertinent  in  this  connection. 
Repetition  of  that  comment  is  entirely  unnecessary,  and 
will  be  essayed  in  no  respect  whatever.  In  the  adoption 
of  the  present  measure  of  force  legislation  Congress  seems 
to  have  forgotten  one  very  important  particular — namely, 
that  the  Southern  States  were  considered  a  portion  of  the 
Union,  were  expected  to  remain  an  integral  part  of  the 
American  republic,  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, and  relied  upon  for  a  hearty  and  natural  co-ope- 
ration in  the  work  of  advancing  the  general  welfare  of  the 
country.  Was  the  spirit  of  this  measure  consistent  with 
such  expectations?  Was  it  an  adequate  or  approximate 
means  for  securing  the  desired  end  ?  There  are  two  meth- 
ods, as  hereinbefore  stated,  of  governing  states  and  people. 
The  one  is  by  sheer  force — the  other  by  wholesome  induce- 
ment, by  inaugurating  such  a  condition  of  things  as  will 
change  the  motives  of  individual  action.  The  two  cannot 
go  hand  in  hand.  They  are  entirely  antagonistic,  both  in 
principle  and  practice.  One  or  the  other  must  have  abso- 
lute and  exclusive  sway.  The  first  requires  constant  rein- 
forcement— the  second,  once  established,  continues  its 
existence  by  force  of  its  own  momentum.  The  one  is  a 
pursuance  of  the  aphorism  that  "  might  makes  right" — the 
other  that  the  assurance  of  a  betterment  of  condition  i§  the 
strongest  motor-power.  The  former  rules  by  reason  of 
brute  strength — the  latter  by  virtue  of  common  consent. 
The  government  of  force  requires  all  its  energies  to  prolong 
its  present  existence — that  of  inducement  can  direct  its 
entire  resources  to  the  extension  of  its  interests.  The  sub- 
jects of  the  one  obey  because  they  must — those  of  the  other 
because  they  will. 

It  may  be  otherwise,  but  the  so-called  Ku-klux  bill  ap- 
pears to  scout  the  truth  of  the  foregoing  statements,  both  in 
their  abstract  and  relative  bearings.     We  cannot  wed  mili- 
29  P 


33$          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tary  to  civil  authority  in  the  South.  The  people  thereof 
can  be  compelled  to  do  thus  and  so,  of  course,  but  the  sys- 
tem of  compulsion  once  inaugurated,  when  shall  it  be  with- 
drawn ?  Can  it  be  supposed  that  this  portion  of  our  popu- 
lation will  warmly  espouse  the  interests  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment when  the  two  cardinal  features  of  the  policy  of 
that  Government  toward  it  are  proscription  and  military  and 
martial  law?  It  is  impossible.  The  people  of  the  South 
must  be  regarded  as  friends,  and  treated  accordingly. 
WJiat  they  have  been  or  done,  if  we  look  to  them  for  aid  in 
the  promotion  of  the  general  welfare,  is,  in  the  light  of  policy, 
of  no  sort  of  consequence  whatever.  The  day  of  punishment 
for  prior  misdeeds  is  past  beyond  every  possibility  of  recall. 
The  intelligence  of  Christendom  will  not  now  tolerate  the 
idea,  however  much  it  would  have  approved  it  at  the  im- 
mediate close  of  the  rebellion.  There  is  no  possible  es- 
cape from  the  conclusion — it  is  inevitable  :  Enlist  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  Southern  people  by  elevating  their  condition 
to  one  of  equality  with  the  rest  of  our  population,  or  we 
shall  jeopardize  the  general  welfare  of  the  nation. 

The  force  of  the  foregoing  is  made  more  apparent  by  a 
simple  glance  at  a  subject  peculiarly  germane  to  the  one 
now  under  discussion.  In  the  winter  of  1871-72  (a  fact 
which  should  have  been  stated  in  a  prior  connection)  a 
joint  select  committee  was  appointed  by  Congress  to  in- 
vestigate the  condition  of  things  in  the  late  rebellious 
States,  from  the  alleged  character  of  which  the  present  act 
had  been  declared  a  necessity.  The  report  of  this  com- 
mittee fully  justified,  so  far  as  the  extent  and  enormity  of 
the  Ku-klux  outrages  were  concerned,  the  statements  which 
had  previously  emanated  from  more  private  and  unauthentic 
sources.  No  excuse  is  here  offered  for  those  villainous  pro- 
ceedings. This  joint  select  committee  appointed  a  sub- 
committee for  the  purpose  of  investigating  the  financial 
condition  of  the  States  which  had  participated  in  the  late 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  339 

rebellion,  and  the  statui  of  things  disclosed  by  the  report 
of  this  committee  was  deplorable  in  the  extreme.  Space 
will  not  permit  either  its  full  citation  or  extended  com- 
ment upon  its  revelations,  but  as  regards  the  finances 
of  the  Southern  States  under  the  management  of  their 
present  governments  very  few  of  the  more  salient  facts 
are  worthy  of  particular  attention.  Reference  will  be 
first  had  to  Louisiana,  and  for  this  purpose  we  make  an 
extract  from  the  New  York  Nation  of  August  3,  1871.  It 
says:  "Between  1850  and  1860  the  State  tax  in  Louisiana 
ranged  from  twenty-one  cents  on  a  hundred  dollars  to 
twenty-nine  cents.  In  1865  and  1866  it  was  thirty-seven 
and  a  half  cents;  in  1867  and  1868  it  was  fifty-two  and  a 
half  cents;  in  1869  it  was  seventy-five;  in  1870  it  was 
$1.45  ;  and  for  this  year  it  will  be  considerably  more  than 
$2.  Next,  it  is  to  be  considered  that  while  the  taxes  have 
thus  been  increasing  the  State's  expenditures  have  been  con- 
stantly in  excess  of  the  receipts.  Mr.  James  Graham,  the 
State  Auditor,  certifies  that  the  excess  in  the  fiscal  year  end- 
ing in  1871  is  $8,778,618.15,  making  the  total  debt  of  the 
State  nearly  $49,000,000.  At  the  breaking  out  of  the  war 
Louisiana  had  a  debt  of  $10,000,000;  in  1868  this  was 
$14,500,000;  in  1869,  $22,500,000;  in  1870,  $41,000,000; 
and,  as  we  have  said,  in  June,  1871,  nearly  $49,000,000. 
Formerly,  before  1860,  a  sixty-days'  session  of  the  legis- 
lature cost  from  $100,000  to  $200,000;  the  regular  ses- 
sion and  extra  session  of  1870  cost  more  than  $750,000; 
and  the  regular  session  of  1871  cost  more  than  $9,000,000. 
The  State  Treasury  supported  at  a  cost,  in  1870,  of  $432,000, 
and  in  1871  of  nearly  $400,000,  about  thirty  sheets  (news- 
papers in  name),  printed  in  the  country  districts,  and  in 
great  part  conducted  by  members  of  the  legislature." 

Look  now  to  South  Carolina;  and  we  again  take  from 
the  Nation  an  extract  of  its  report  of  a  convention  of  tax- 


340         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

payers,  men  suffering  under  proscription,  which  met  at 
Columbus  in  the  summer  of  the  same  year.  The  Nation 
says:  "The  first  thing  the  convention  did  was  naturally 
enough  to  look  into  the  condition  of  the  State  finances, 
and  its  reports  on  this  point  will  furnish  a  good  study  to 
those  who  are  interested  in  what  we  may  call  morbid  poli- 
tics— that  is,  the  politics  of  sick  societies — for  its  resem- 
blance to  the  financial  exhibits  which  municipal  reformers 
occasionally  lay  before  the  public  in  this  city  is  very  curi- 
ous, particularly  in  the  item  of  salaries,  which,  we  need 
hardly  say,  have  all  risen  greatly.  The  committee  of  the 
convention  compares  the  amounts  paid  in  1866,  when  the 
new  regime  was  established,  and  those  paid  this  year,  and 
the  way  the  increase  is  distributed  gives  one  an  instructive 
glimpse  of  the  carpet-bag  ideas  about  administration  and 
carpet-bag  ways  of  estimating  the  value  and  importance  of 
services.  For  instance,  the  governor's  salary  remains  the 
same,  $3500,  and  the  annual  amount  paid  to  the  judges  is 
actually  diminished  from  $30,000  to  $28,000,  though  there 
is  a  slight  increase  in  the  salaries  of  the  chief-justice  and 
the  associate  justices.  But  the  expense  of  the  secretary  of 
state's  office,  including  his  salary,  rose  at  one  jump  from 
$500  to  $4000.  The  adjutant  inspector-general,  who  has, 
we  believe,  no  duties,  and  is  to  himself  a  hollow  mock- 
ery, cost  the  State  nothing  in  1866,  but  now  the  sorry  wag 
pockets  $2500  a  year.  The  treasurer's  office  used  to  cost 
$3200  a  year — it  now  costs  $5800 ;  and  the  attorney-general 
used  to  cost  $1100 — he  now  costs  $4000;  the  clerk  of  the 
court  of  appeals  used  to  cost  $800 — he  now  costs  $1500. 
The  'solicitors,'  whatever  they  are,  used  to  cost  $4500,  but 
the  State  now  pays  them  $8000.  'The  auditor  of  state,' 
apparently  a  new  officer,  gets  $4000.  But  the  gem  of  the 
accounts  is  the  item  called  '  Legislative  Expenses,'  to  which 
we  have,  however,  called  attention  in  the  Nation  before 
now.  These  were  in  1866,  $45,850,  and  less,  we  believe, 


FORCE  LEGISLATION.  34! 

previously;  in  1871  they  were  $400,000.  Of  this  enor- 
mous sum  we  believe  a  large  portion  is  drawn  from  the 
treasury  on  the  Speaker's  order,  or  that  of  the  president  of 
Senate,  in  advance  of  any  appropriation.  The  most  taking 
item  in  the  account,  which  in  many  ways  surpasses  anything 
to  which  we  have  been  treated  in  New  York,  is  $15,000  to 
a  '  commission  to  codify  the  laws,'  the  duties  of  which,  the 
report  says,  'might  be  discharged  by  a  clerk;'  which  is 
either  a  severe  reflection  on  carpet-bag  jurisprudence  or 
very  high  praise  of  it.  Laws  that  a  clerk  can  codify  were 
either  not  worth  making,  or  were  so  well  made  that  he  who 
runs  may  read  them.  Finally,  the  State  taxes  of  the  year 
reach  $2,000,000,  as  against  $400,000  before  the  war, 
while  the  value  of  the  taxable  property  is  diminished  by 
one-half." 

Georgia  is  in  a  condition  worse,  if  possible,  than  either 
Louisiana  or  South  Carolina,  and  the  following — as  alleged 
and  not  disproved — is  the  present  status  (the  spring  of  1872) 
of  a  few  of  the  Northern  men  who  have  been  elected  under 
our  prescriptive  policy  to  administer  the  government  of  the 
Southern  States.  The  governor  of  Texas  is  indicted  for 
fraudulent  issue  of  election  certificates ;  the  governor  of 
North  Carolina  has  been  impeached  for  theft  and  removed 
from  office ;  the  governor  of  Georgia  has  retired  from  office 
to  escape  a  similar  fate;  the  governor  of  South  Carolina  is 
an  embezzler  of  the  State  funds  to  an  enormous  amount ; 
the  governor  of  Florida  is  on  trial  for  stealing  railroad 
bonds;  and  the  governor  of  Arkansas,  openly  charged  with 
frauds  which  are  not  disproved,  is  precipitating  his  State 
into  hopeless  bankruptcy. 

These  are  a  very  few  of  the  many  enormities  which 
Northern  politicians  have  been  and  are  still  committing 
throughout  the  South  under  the  name  and  fame  of  Repub- 
licans. In  view  of  these  facts,  do  we  not  see  a  reason, 
though  not  an  excuse,  why  the  Ku-klux  Klans  have  assailed 
29* 


342          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  parties  who,  innocently  in  many  instances  it  is  true, 
and  altogether  by  virtue  of  our  policy  of  proscription,  have 
elevated  such  miscreants  to  places  of  official  trust?  More- 
over, are  the  precedents  established  by  the  act  in  question, 
as  seen  in  the  main  discussion  of  the  subject,  such  as  the 
American  people  will  feel  willing  to  sanction  if  a  man  of 
inordinate  ambition  shall  chance  to  be  elevated  to  the 
magisterial  chair  of  the  nation  ? 


CHAPTER    V. 

CIVIL   SERVICE. 

"  To  the  Victor  belong  the  Spoils  of  the  Enemy  " — The  Origin  and 
Significance  of  the  Phrase — Civil  Service  defined — The  present  In- 
stitution wholly  a  Political  One — The  Status  of  the  President  and 
Congress  in  relation  thereto — The  Defects  of  the  Present  System — It 
Rests  upon  Political  Influence — Merit  Entirely  Discarded — Its  En- 
ervating Effects  upon  the  President — The  Same  as  to  Members  of 
Congress — The  Same  as  to  Members  of  the  Service — A  Continuous 
Chain  of  Self-interest  from  the  President  to  the  most  Petty  Official — 
The  Operation  of  the  System  viewed — How  it  Bears  upon  Elections 
— Political  Assessments — The  System  a  Slavery  of  Opinion — A 
Statement  of  the  Number,  Grade  and  Salaries  of  Officials  Engaged 
in  the  Service — Civil  Service  Reform — Attempts  in  this  Direction  so 
far  Failures — Measures  Necessary  for  an  Adequate  Reform — They 
consist  of  Twelve  Changes  in  our  Organic  and  Municipal  Code — 
The  Same  Discussed  at  Length — Criticism  of  the  Report  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission — It  is  both  Inadequate  and  Impracticable — The 
Worth  of  Oral  or  Written  Examinations  considered — The  Machinery 
by  which  the  Same  are  to  be  Conducted — It  Opens  more  widely  the 
Door  for  Fraud  and  Abuse  than  the  Old  System — "  Political  Pres- 
sure "  not  Overcome,  but  Encouraged — A  mere  Machine  for  Party 
Aggrandizement. 

"  r  \  ^O  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy."     In 

A     the  year  1832.  when  Andrew  Jackson  nominated 

Martin  Van  Buren  minister  to  England,  William  L.  Marcy 

of  New  York,  in  arguing  for  his  confirmation,  gave  utter- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  343 

ance  to  the  sentiment  above  quoted.  It  has  not  only,  so 
to  speak,  become  a  household  word  with  the  masses  of  the 
American  people,  but  also,  since  the  year  above  named, 
has  constituted  the  entire  code  for  conducting  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  this  republic.  Prior  to  that  period  our  Government 
kept  this  service  wholly  distinct  from  questions  of  politics. 
Mere  political  status  was  not  a  requisite,  nor  even  a  recom- 
mendation, for  position  therein.  The  sole  criterion  by 
which  such  positions  were  filled  was  the  fitness  and  capacity 
of  the  applicant  therefor.  Removals  were  made  only  for 
cause,  and  were  consequently  of  rare  occurrence.  This 
was  particularly  the  case  under  Washington's  administra- 
tion, as  the  first  President  was  peculiarly  a  President  of  the 
people,  and  not  of  a  party.  The  elder  Adams  followed  the 
same  rule  of  action,  and  with  comparative  freedom  from 
the  importunity  of  office-seekers.  With  the  inauguration 
of  Jefferson,  however,  the  old  Federal  party,  as  represented 
by  Washington  and  Adams,  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  Demo- 
cratic organization  assumed  the  reins  of  government.  With 
this  change  in  the  political  character  of  the  national  admin- 
istration the  supporters  of  the  Democracy  loudly  clamored 
for  the  places  in  the  civil  service  of  the  nation.  Jefferson, 
however,  was  inexorable,  and  put  upon  record  his  memor- 
able declaration  that  "The  only  questions  concerning  a 
candidate  shall  be — Is  he  honest?  is  he  capable?  is  he 
faithful  to  the  Constitution?"  Madison,  Monroe  and  the 
younger  Adams  pursued  the  same  policy,  but  Andrew  Jack- 
son, like  all  the  military  men  which  this  country  has  elected 
to  the  position  of  chief  executive,  had  no  regard  for  prece- 
dent, and  not  much  greater  for  law.  With  his  administra- 
tion, as  already  stated,  was  established  our  present  system 
of  civil  service,  the  discussion  of  which  will  now  be  essayed 
in  the  following  order — namely: 

I.  Outline  of  the  Present  System  ; 
II.  Its  Defects,  and  their  Remedy ; 


344         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

III.  Criticism  of  the  Report  of  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission. 

A  single  prefatory  remark  is  pertinent  before  entering 
upon  the  general  field  of  inquiry  as  above  designated.  By 
the  term  "civil  service"  is  meant  that  portion  of  the  ad- 
ministrative department  of  our  Government,  wherein  the 
officials  secure  their  positions  by  appointment  instead  of 
election  by  the  people.  In  the  future  discussion  of  this 
subject,  therefore,  whenever  the  administrative  branch  of 
the  Government  is  referred  to,  let  it  be  remembered  that 
such  reference  is  impliedly  qualified  by  the  restriction 
contained  in  the  above  definition  of  the  subject  of  this 
chapter. 

I.  In  respect  to  the  general  outlines  of  our  present  system, 
it  is  too  familiar  to  every  intelligent  citizen  to  require  a 
detailed  analysis.  Of  its  merits  very  little  can  be  said, 
and  as  its  defects  will  be  made  a  special  subject  of  con- 
sideration under  a  distinct  and  separate  heading,  it  is 
simply  necessary  in  this  connection  to  indulge  in  a  com- 
prehensive statement  of  the  more  prominent  features  of  the 
scheme. 

Our  civil  service,  as  it  now  exists,  is  emphatically  and 
solely  a  political  institution.  Its  management  is  prompted 
by  political  expedient  alone.  It  is  a  means  for  the  attain- 
ment of  a  certain  end,  and  that  end  is  a  perpetuation  of 
the  power  of  the  dominant  party.  Political  status  is  an 
absolute  prerequisite,  and  individual  fitness  and  capacity  a 
perfect  non-essential,  for  official  place  in  this  department. 
The  efficiency  of  this  administrative  force  is  regarded  as 
wholly  unworthy  of  consideration.  The  question  is,  Can 
and  will  the  several  members  help  to  assure  the  continued 
elevation  of  the  ruling  party?  and  not,  Are  they  in  any 
respect  capable  of  performing  the  duties  incumbent  upon 
the  respective  positions  to  which  they  are  assigned  ?  The 
President  of  the  nation,  whether  the  people  will  or  no,  is 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  345 

seldom  so  free  from  motives  of  personal  ambition  but  that 
he  is  bending  every  effort  for  a  re-election.  It  is  conse- 
quently of  the  first  importance  to  him  to  retain  the  friend- 
ship and  support  of  members  of  Congress.  These  latter 
individuals  also  are  rarely  so  forgetful  of  self-interest  as  to 
make  a  prolongation  of  their  official  existence  a  secondary 
object  of  consideration.  Their  paramount  duty,  therefore, 
consists  in  advancing  the  personal  wishes  of  their  constit- 
uents. This  constituency,  moreover,  receive  their  appoint- 
ments under  the  General  Government  through  the  inter- 
cession of  their  Representatives  and  Senators  in  Congress. 
Thus  it  is,  if  we  may  be  allowed  so  strong  a  qualifying 
word,  that  the  staff  and  rank  and  file  of  the  ruling  party 
are  constantly  acting  in  a  vicious  circle,  the  principal  end 
of  which  action  is  their  own  individual  aggrandizement. 
Hence,  to  refuse  either  the  executive  or  these  national 
legislators  an  unqualified  support  is  absolutely  suicidal  to 
the  personal  interests  of  every  member  of  our  civil  service. 
The  President  stands  in  constant  fear  of  every  Congress- 
man, lest  the  latter  shall  array  his  constituents  to  oppose 
his  re-election ;  the  national  legislators  must  answer  the 
beck  of  their  constituency  for  official  place,  or  give  way  to 
successors  who  will  prove  more  faithful  to  their  trust ;  the 
electors  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  must  faithfully  sup- 
port not  only  the  President,  but  the  respective  members 
thereof,  or  suffer  the  penalty  of  removal  from  official  posi- 
tion. Every  one  of  these  three  elements,  in  short,  owes 
absolute  obedience  to  the  remaining  two,  and  upon  that 
single  thread  hangs  the  entire  system  of  our  civil  service. 

The  foregoing  statements  are  not  an  exaggeration  of  the 
general  outline  of  the  system.  They  do  not,  of  course, 
include,  neither  were  they  intended  to,  a  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  either  the  form,  manner  or  result  of  its  operation. 
These  must  all  necessarily  appear  in  the  examination  of  the 
defects  of  this  system  in  the  second  sub-subject  of  this 

Pi 


34-6         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

chapter,  and  a  desire  to  avoid  repetition  accounts  for  their 
absence  in  this  connection.  Briefly,  then,  to  recapitulate, 
the  prominent  features  of  our  civil  service  system  are  as 
follows — namely :  The  institution  is  purely  a  political  one, 
and  its  sole  object  is  the  maintenance  of  party  power ;  the 
appointing  prerogative  is  vested  in  the  President,  the  heads 
of  Departments  and  other  major  officials,  requiring,  in  some 
instances,  confirmation  by  the  Senate  or  other  high  author- 
ity ;  the  criterion  by  which  the  appointing  power  makes  its 
selections  is  the  ability  of  applicants  to  promote  purely 
party  interests ;  the  motive  which  prompts  to  appointments 
is  a  desire  for  re-election  ;  and  the  advisory  counsel  in  the 
case  are  the  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress. 
The  character  of  the  opinions  given  by  this  advisory  board 
is  measured  by  the  intensity  of  the  wish  of  its  members  to 
retain  their  seats  in  the  next  succeeding  legislature,  and  the 
only  aim  of  the  appointees  is  to  further  the  personal  politi- 
cal welfare  of  the  President  and  the  national  legislators  who 
represent  their  State  and  district  in  the  councils  of  the 
nation. 

II.  The  defects  of  this  system  and  their  natural  ade- 
quate remedy  will  now  engage  attention.  These  defects 
are  plainly  foreshadowed  by  the  remarks  which  have  been 
just  dismissed,  but  a  little  reflection  renders  their  gravity 
still  more  apparent.  The  vulnerable  points  of  the  scheme 
all  originate  from  the  fact  that  influence  is  the  corner-stone 
whereon  the  entire  system  rests.  Every  other  element  and 
consideration  which  naturally  demands  a  place  in  the 
supervision  of  our  civil  service  is  wholly  lost  sight  of  in 
canvassing  the  influence  possessed  by  all  the  parties  to  the 
scheme,  for  scheme  indeed  it  is.  This  single  stubborn 
fact  taints  the  entire  administrative  force  of  the  Govern- 
ment, both  in  and  out  of  the  civil  service,  from  the  Presi- 
dent down  to  a  postmaster  of  a  country  village.  On  the 
one  hand  are  seen  the  almost  frantic  endeavors  of  appli- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  347 

cants  to  either  secure  the  necessary  political  support  to 
insure  an  appointment,  or  to  retain  such  support  when  once 
secured ;  and  on  the  other  is  manifest  the  constant  vigi- 
lance of  the  appointing  agency,  whether  it  be  the  Presi- 
dent, a  head  of  a  Department  or  other  major  official, 
to  see  that  the  appointee  is  faithfully  laboring  for  his  mas- 
ter's political  advancement.  This  evil  influence,  moreover, 
as  already  seen,  is  not  confined  within  the  mere  limits  of 
the  administrative  division  of  Government.  Its  unwhole- 
some savor  attaches  to  every  member  of  the  national  legis- 
lature, and  his  first  thought  and  most  urgent  duty  is  to 
secure  as  many  appointments  for  his  constituents  as  possible, 
knowing  full  well  that  he  is  thereby  most  sure  to  circumvent 
the  efforts  of  rival  aspirants  for  his  position. 

This  consideration  of  political  status — the  fact  that  influ- 
ence and  not  fitness  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the  door  to 
official  place  in  the  administrative  department — is  the  gen- 
eral, fundamental  defect  of  the  system.  Let  the  more  im- 
portant results  of  this  defect  be  here  submitted  to  a  brief 
examination.  Reference  will  be  first  had  to  the  manner  in 
which  it  affects  the  chief  executive.  Anticipating  a  little, 
in  this  connection,  the  tabulated  statement  farther  on  which 
contains  the  number  and  salaries  of  the  officials  of  our  civil 
service,  let  it  be  remembered  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  has  the  appointment  or  nomination  of  about 
twenty-eight  hundred  members  of  this  administrative  force. 
Let  it  also  be  remembered  that  these  appointments  are 
almost  exclusively  made  in  pursuance  of  the  wishes  of  the 
members  of  Congress,  and  that  these  latter  are  between 
three  and  four  hundred  in  number.  Now,  the  statement  is 
not  an  exaggeration,  but  a  notorious,  patent  fact,  that  the 
consideration  of  the  various  applications  for  these  places  in 
the  civil  service  consumes  more  of  the  President's  time  and 
attention  than  all  his  other  duties  combined.  This  con- 
sideration, moreover,  is  characterized  and  governed  almost 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

solely  by  the  fealty  which  the  applicant  is  supposed  to  en- 
tertain for  the  President  in  person,  and  the  amount  of  influ- 
ence he  may  be  relied  upon  to  possess  in  the  next  ap- 
proaching canvass.  The  evil  result  is  therefore  twofold. 
The  material  interests  of  the  country  can  be  almost  immeas- 
urably advanced  by  the  constant  attention  of  the  chief 
executive  thereto,  although,  possibly,  they  may  remain  in 
statu  quo  in  the  absence  of  such  supervision.  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  in  theory  at  least,  and  properly 
in  practice,  is  not,  like  the  queen  of  England,  an  orna- 
mental appendage  of  Government.  Justice  to  the  demands 
of  the  office,  outside  of  any  connection  with  the  civil 
service,  requires  all  the  time  and  application  which  the 
most  brilliant  intellect  and  greatest  executive  ability  can 
bring  to  the  position.  It  should  be  robbed  of  such  atten- 
tion of  its  incumbent  only  to  the  extent  of  insuring  him 
needed  rest  and  recreation ;  and  the  man  who  accepts  the 
trust  and  enters  upon  its  duties  with  any  other  intention 
grossly  violates  the  confidence  of  the  American  people. 
Our  system  of  civil  service,  however,  places  an  absolute  in- 
hibition upon  such  a  course  on  the  part  of  the  executive. 
We  say  absolute,  for  no  man  has  yet  been  found  of  suffi- 
cient stability,  strength  of  purpose  and  honest  independ- 
ence since  the  day  of  John  Quincy  Adams  to  emanci- 
pate himself  from  the  slavery  of  our  present  system,  and 
thereby  prejudice  the  chances  of  his  re-election.  It  is  to 
be  very  gravely  doubted  whether  such  an  individual  is  in 
existence.  It  may  therefore  be  safely  asserted  that  the 
present  system  consumes  two-thirds  of  the  President's  time 
and  attention  which  are  imperatively  demanded  by  the  le- 
gitimate requirements  of  his  official  place.  How  much  the 
interests  of  the  country  suffer  by  such  a  diversion  of  execu- 
tive care  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  the  statement  that  such 
inattention  is  not  immensely  prejudicial  thereto  is  an  hy- 
perbole of  the  most  ridiculous  character  possible. 


CIVIL  SEX  VICE.  349 

The  second  evil  result  of  this  general  defect  upon  the 
chief  executive  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  completely  com- 
promises the  independence  and  dignity  of  that  official,  and 
puts  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in  all  his  thoughts, 
policy  and  motives,  upon  an  equal  level  with  a  collector  of 
internal  revenue.  Extended  remark  in  this  direction  is 
wholly  unnecessary.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  fact  is 
a  disgrace  to  our  national  politics  and  an  unblushing 
slander  upon  republican  institutions  in  general. 

Attention  may  be  now  directed  to  the  result  of  this  fun- 
damental defect  in  the  system  upon  members  of  Congress 
and  their  official  duties.  In  this  particular,  however,  very 
little  need  be  said.  A  general  application  in  this  connec- 
tion of  the  preceding  remarks  upon  the  prejudicial  effect  of 
this  evil  in  its  bearings  upon  the  official  status  and  legiti- 
mate requirements  of  the  chief  executive  renders  extended 
comment  entirely  unnecessary.  As  the  position  of  the 
national  legislators  in  respect  to  our  civil  service,  relatively 
speaking,  is  precisely  identical  with  that  of  the  President, 
a  train  of  similar  evils  flows  from  their  connection  with  the 
scheme.  For  reasons  already  noticed,  a  very  great  if  not 
a  major  portion  of  their  time  and  attention  is  devoted  to 
what,  in  Washington,  is  technically  termed  "Department 
business" — that  is,  begging  places  in  the  civil  service  for 
constituents  who  are  ready  to  cast  a  ballot  in  the  succeed- 
ing canvass  for  a  "new  candidate"  in  case  a  deaf  ear  is 
turned  to  their  ceaseless  importunity.  The  consequence 
here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  President,  consists  in  an  almost 
culpable  neglect  of  the  legitimate  requirements  of  official 
trust,  and  a  most  humiliating  compromise  of  the  dignity, 
independence  and  self-respect  of  the  several  members,  to- 
gether, by  reason  of  the  disgusting  spectacle,  with  a  partial 
and  in  many  instances  total  exclusion  of  the  sober-thinking 
and  intelligent  masses  of  our  population  from  all  participa- 
tion in  our  national  politics.  This  last,  indeed,  is  one  of 

30 


3 SO         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  most  lamentable  results  of  the  system,  as  the  country 
is  thereby  deprived  of  the  services  of  those  most  competent 
to  secure  its  material  advancement  and  give  character  and 
prestige  to  our  Government  in  its  relations  with  foreign 
powers. 

In  respect  to  the  injurious  result  of  the  working  of  this 
system  upon  the  members  of  the  service,  the  same  may  be 
adequately  stated  in  a  single  remark.  The  sole  end  to 
which  their  efforts  are  directed  is  the  advancement  of  the 
personal  interests  of  the  appointing  power,  and  not  the 
proper  discharge  of  the  duties  incumbent  upon  their  offices. 
The  details  incident  to  this  general  truth  will  sufficiently 
appear  in  the  consideration  of  the  manner  in  which  this 
system  taints  and  vulgarizes  not  only  our  national  but  all 
of  our  local  and  State  elections. 

The  topic  suggested  by  the  next  preceding  remark  will 
now  engage  attention,  and  it  is  one  which  gives  shameful 
and  indisputable  evidence  of  the  worst  consequences  of  the 
present  system.  The  proposition  has  not  been  intimated, 
nor  in  this  or  any  other  connection  will  it  be  maintained, 
that  all  or  even  a  majority  of  our  electors  are  actuated  by 
purely  selfish  motives  in  the  choice  of  our  administrative 
and  representative  government.  Such  an  assertion  would 
be  a  grave  departure  from  the  truth.  To  their  honor  be 
it  said,  a  goodly  portion,  at  least,  of  the  masses  of  the 
American  people  exercise  the  privilege  of  the  elective  fran- 
chise with  a  view  of  elevating  their  most  capable  and  intel- 
ligent fellow-citizens  to  the  public  places  of  official  trust. 
Humiliating,  however,  as  the  fact  may  seem,  the  same  can- 
not be  alleged  in  reference  to  the  leaders  of  the  various 
political  organizations.  Here,  as  everywhere,  there  are  of 
course  exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  but  a  very  large,  and 
probably  a  major,  portion  of  what  are  termed  party  man- 
agers base  their  entire  action  upon  their  own  prospects  of 
success  in  the  coming  election.  Their  chances  of  indi- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  351 

vidual,  official  gain  measure  alike  their  honesty,  truthful- 
ness and  purity  of  purpose  throughout  the  entire  canvass. 

A  full  examination  of  all  the  details  of  this  branch  of  the 
general  subject  is  inconsistent  with  the  limits  of  the  present 
chapter,  but  even  a  restricted  comment  will  suffice  to  prove 
that  a  continuous  and  indissoluble  chain  of  self-interest 
connects  the  election  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
with  the  choice  of  a  leader  of  a  village  caucus,  and  that 
the  means  appropriated  for  the  attainment  of  these  respect- 
ive ends  are  such  as  any  respectable  private  citizen  would 
not  for  a  moment  entertain  in  the  prosecution  of  ordinary 
business  pursuits.  Comparatively  speaking,  indeed,  the 
ruling  power  of  these  elections  is  found  in  the  fact  that  "  to 
the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy."  Look,  for  a 
moment,  at  the  manner  in  which  the  delegates  to  a  national 
convention  for  the  nomination  of  a  President  are  chosen, 
and  the  requisites  which  are  demanded  in  an  occupant  of 
such  a  position.  In  a  general  statement  like  the  present 
the  inclusion  of  specific  particulars  is  of  course  impossible 
(the  States  having  different  methods  of  action  in  this  re- 
spect), but  it  is  sufficiently  exact  to  say  that  these  delegates 
are  chosen  at  State  or  local  conventions  called  for  this  ob- 
ject alone  or  for  this  and  other  purposes  combined.  The 
members  of  these  State  or  local  conventions,  moreover,  are 
also  chosen  by  the  means  of  the  more  local  "primary" 
meeting  or  "caucus;"  and  these  last,  using  the  technical 
political  term,  are  invariably  "packed"  and  managed,  to 
a  greater  or  less  extent,  by  civil  seivice  officials  of  the 
United  States  within  the  localities.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  these  officials  receive  their  appointment  by  reason  of 
their  fitness  for  this  peculiar  service.  They  are,  without 
exception,  the  political  leaders  of  their  respective  localities, 
and  their  influence  is  wellnigh  insurmountable.  It  cannot 
well  be  otherwise.  The  principal  duty  of  these  local  civil 
service  officials  throughout  the  year,  and  one  which  must 


352         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

not  be  neglected  in  any  event,  is  to  marshal  the  necessary 
forces  for  the  "manipulation"  of  these  local  primaries. 
And  manipulated  they  are.  A  promise  of  a  share  in  the 
"spoils,"  and  a.  judicious  distribution  of  funds  obtained 
both  by  subscription  and  political  assessments  (which  last 
will  receive  fuller  notice  in  a  separate  connection),  result 
in  the  return  of  a  local  delegation  to  the  State  convention 
pledged  to  support  candidates  for  the  presidential  one  who 
will  "  do  honor  to  the  party  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of 
republican  institutions  in  general."  This  last  is  understood 
to  mean  to  vote  for  men  selected  by  the  more  prominent 
members  of  the  civil  service  who  shall  appear  upon  the 
scene  of  action. 

Passing  from  the  organization  and  work  of  these  primary 
meetings,  attention  will  be  for  a  moment  directed  to  the 
labor  of  the  State  conventions.  The  formation  and  com- 
position of  the  latter  have  sufficiently  appeared  in  the  pre- 
ceding remarks.  The  civil  service  element,  suffice  it  to 
say,  by  reason  of  the  action  of  the  primaries,  usually  has  a 
majority  both  in  point  of  influence  and  numbers,  and  pro- 
ceedings precisely  similar  to  those  of  the  local  caucus  cha- 
racterize the  deliberations  throughout.  The  necessary  dele- 
gates having  been  chosen,  they  must  not  only  be  "pledged'1 
but  "instructed"  to  support  such  and  such  parties  for  presi- 
dential electors.  In  many  instances,  even,  their  instructions 
are  absolute,  and  discretionary  action  is  strictly  prohibited. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  pursue  this  narration  farther.  The 
preliminary  proceedings  above  described  reach  an  appro- 
priate culmination  at  the  presidential  convention,  which  by 
no  means  escapes  the  manipulation  peculiar  to  the  primaries 
that  precede  it.  Reference,  therefore,  will  now  be  had  to 
the  bearings  of  our  present  system  upon  the  elections  of  the 
several  States. 

A  condition  of  things  incident  to  this  system  is  here 
reached  which  it  is  impossible  to  censure  in  terms  too 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  353 

severe.  It  may  be  safely  said  that  there  is  not  a  State  in 
the  Union  which  escapes  the  interference  of  Federal  offi- 
cials in  the  election  of  both  its  representative  and  adminis- 
trative government.  This  is  due  principally  to  the  fact 
that  the  United  States  Senators  are  chosen  by  the  legisla- 
tures of  the  several  States ;  and  as  these  officials  constitute 
the  more  important  portion  of  the  advisory  board  upon 
whose  recommendation  appointments  are  made  to  our  civil 
service,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  ruling  party 
that  the  composition  of  these  bodies  shall  be  of  a  character 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  organization  which  directs  the 
General  Government.  In  view  of  this  fact  the  nominating 
primaries  and  elections  by  which  these  State  officials  re- 
ceive their  appointment  are  largely  influenced,  and  in 
many  instances  entirely  controlled,  by  members  of  our 
civil  service,  as  in  the  case  of  the  national  elections  above 
noted.  The  choice  of  members  of  the  State  legislatures  is 
the  matter  in  which,  as  already  indicated,  this  Federal  in- 
terference is  most  largely  interposed.  It  is  not,  however, 
with  the  election  of  such  officials  that  this  interference 
ceases.  The  fact  is  as  notorious  as  it  is  shameful  that  the 
organization  of  these  bodies,  the  choice  of  their  presiding 
officers,  the  appointment  of  their  committees,  and  every 
matter  of  internal  regulation,  indeed,  however  trivial  its 
import,  is  subjected  to  this  unwarranted  manipulation  of 
the  agents  of  the  General  Government.  There  is  no  ex- 
aggeration in  the  statement  last  above  made.  It  is  patent 
to  every  intelligent  observer  of  the  State  of  New  York  that 
the  organization  of  its  legislature  of  1872  was  absolutely 
determined  by  the  presence  of  no  less  than  three  hundred 
members  of  the  civil  service  at  Albany,  acting,  humiliat- 
ing as  the  record  may  appear,  under  the  immediate  and 
combined  supervision  of  one  of  the  national  legislators 
from  that  State,  and  an  ex-collector  of  customs  whom  pnl>- 
hc  opinion  had  forced  to  resign  on  account  of  alleged 

30  • 


354         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

irregular  and  disgraceful  practices,  which  charges  were  not 
at  the  time,  and  never  have  been,  disproved.  The  motive- 
power,  let  it  be  remembered,  which  induces  this  unwhole- 
some conduct  is  a  prospect  of  a  position  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  the  nation. 

Strictly  germane  to  this  general  sub-subject  is  the  matter 
of  political  assessments.  They  constitute,  indeed,  one  of 
the  most  powerful  levers  by  which  the  irregular  measures 
of  the  civil  service  scheme  are  carried  to  a  successful  con- 
summation. It  is  wholly  unnecessary  to  indulge  in  a  spe- 
cific statement  of  details  in  this  particular.  The  system  is 
not  a  secret,  but  an  open  and  defiant  institution  of  itself, 
and  the  Federal  servants  are  annually  taxed  in  a  sum  equal 
in  amount  to  from  two  to  ten  per  cent,  of  their  yearly  in- 
come for  purposes  already  described.  The  matter  is  here 
alluded  to,  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  as  one  of  the  glar- 
ing defects  of  the  present  system.  It  will  again  receive 
attention  when  the  essentials  of  a  needed  reform  shall  en- 
gage our  consideration. 

To  conclude  this  brief  examination  of  the  defects  of  this 
system,  a  slight  allusion  will  be  made  to  the  enervating 
effect  it  has  upon  individual  character,  the  consequent  at- 
tendant prejudice  to  the  service,  and  the  propriety  of  a 
healthy  esprit  de  corps  in  political  organizations. 

In  reference  to  the  first,  relatively  speaking,  there  is  not 
a  position  in  which  an  individual  can  be  placed  which  is 
so  derogatory  to  every  sense  of  manhood,  so  prejudicial  to 
every  feeling  of  personal  responsibility,  so  destructive  to 
every  sentiment  of  honest  independence,  as  a  place  in  the 
civil  service  of  the  United  States.  The  above  is  of  course 
impliedly  qualified  by  the  hypothesis  that  the  members 
maintain  an  undoubted  spirit  of  party-  fealty.  Upon  this 
supposition  an  escape  from  the  total  demolition  of  the  at- 
tributes of  private  character  above  mentioned  is  wellnigh 
impossible.  The  system,  indeed,  is  a  slavery  of  the  most 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  355 

contemptible  sort — namely,  that  of  honest  thought  and  in- 
dividual opinion.  The  assertion  of  the  right  to  differ  even, 
although  such  difference  may  not  be  declared,  with  the 
leaders  of  the  party  upon  any  matter  of  political  concern, 
means  an  expulsion  from  the  service  without  any  other 
cause  or  pretext  whatever.  There  are  honorable  excep- 
tions, of  course,  but  in  view  of  this  fact,  this  utter  subser- 
vience of  thought  and  action  which  is  demanded  from  its 
members,  the  service  attracts  to  the  performance  of  its 
duties  men  of  a  mere  time-serving  spirit,  parties  who  are 
willing  to  sacrifice  their  political  principles,  if  necessary, 
for  the  promotion  of  party  weal.  It  cannot  be  otherwise. 
Intelligent  citizens,  generally  speaking,  have  too  high  a 
regard  for  the  right  of  mental  liberty  to  offer  it  as  a  com- 
modity in  exchange  for  the  means  of  an  ordinary  subsist- 
ence. The  consequence  is,  that  the  system  not  only  mili- 
tates against  the  stability  of  private  character,  but  its  defects 
recoil  upon  the  interests  of  the  nation  which  the  service  is 
intended  to  promote,  by  reason  of  the  reputation  of  the 
parties  who  are  alone  willing  to  assume  the  discharge  of  its 
duties.  The  foregoing  receives  abundant  corroboration  in 
the  admitted  fact  that  one-fourth  of  the  public  revenues  is 
squandered  in  the  process  of  collection. 

In  no  respect  whatever,  in  the  prior  consideration  of  this 
subject,  has  an  intendment  been  made  to  criticise  private 
individuals  or  the  separate,  several  members  of  our  civil 
service.  The  general  statements  hereinbefore  declared  are, 
all  of  them,  of  course,  subject  to  frequent  and  important 
exceptions.  There  are  very  many  instances  where  both 
important  and  unimportant  positions  in  this  branch  of  the 
Government  are  not  only  occupied  but  adorned  by  men  of 
sterling  integrity,  practical  acquirements  and  unquestion- 
able ability.  Wherever  such  exceptions  occur,  however, 
they  are  wholly  due  to  the  fact  that  their  political  senti- 
ments are  in  actual  and  voluntary  instead  of  forced  accord 


356         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

with  those  of  the  party  which  directs  the  General  Govern- 
ment. 

This  discussion  must  not  be  construed,  moreover,  into  a 
declaration  against  party  organization  and  the  fostering  of 
party  spirit  in  the  management  of  political  affairs.  Such 
organization  and  such  an  esprit  de  corps  are  absolutely 
indispensable,  both  for  the  ennoblement  of  politics  and  the 
welfare  of  the  nation.  There  are  two  bases,  however,  to 
which  party  fealty  and  organism  owe  their  origin.  One  is 
essentially  sound  and  wholesome — the  other  is  intrinsically 
defective  and  corrupt.  One  is  unqualifiedly  right — the 
other  is  absolutely  wrong.  The  first  is  the  maintenance 
and  promotion  of  a  principle — the  second  is  the  advance- 
ment of  individual  gain.  That  the  former  shall  exist  in 
party  limits  to  the  total  exclusion  of  the  latter  is  one  of  the 
problems  which  republican  institutions  are  expected  to 
solve.  That  this  end  is  being  removed,  instead  of  approx- 
imated, by  our  present  system  of  civil  service,  is  what  the 
foregoing  remarks  have  essayed  to  maintain,  and  not  that 
party  spirit  and  organism  are  enemies  of  the  public  weal. 
Abstractly,  they  are  a  blessing — relatively,  they  may  be  a 
curse. 

An  approximate  statement  will  now  be  made  -of  the 
number  of  officials  engaged  in  the  civil  service,  and  their 
aggregate  salaries,  when  the  requirements  of  a  needed 
reform  in  this  department  will  engage  attention : 

State. 

No.                  Service.  Compensation. 

5  Executive  Attaches $13,800.00 

1  Secretary  of  Stale 8,000.00 

2  Assistant  Secretaries  of  State.. 7,000.00 

46  Attaches  of  State  Department 59,520.00 

35  Foreign  Ministers 331,750.00 

310  Consuls  and  Consular  Agents 400,000.00 

52  Ministerial  and  Consular  Attaches 84,825.00 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  357 

No.  Service.  Compensation. 

1 8  Officials  of  Territories  (Governors,  etc.)....        40,000.00 

225  Attaches  of  Senate  and  House 355,144.40 

694  Total $1,300,039.40 

Mail. 

I  Postmaster-General $8,000.00 

3  Assistant  Postmasters-General 10,500.00 

31,000  Postmasters 6,000,000.00 

6,292  Miscellaneous  officials 5,500,000.00 

37,296  Total $11,518,500.00 

Interior. 

I  Secretary  of  the  Interior $8,000.00 

I  Assistant  Secretary 3,500.00 

1650  Miscellaneous  officials 2,000,000.00 

1652  Total $2,011,500.00 

Military. 
I  Secretary  of  War $8,000.00 

350  Attaches  of  Department 450,000.00 

351  Total $458,000.00 

Naval. 

I   Secretary  of  the  Navy $8,000.00 

89  Attaches  of  Department 120,000.00 

90  Total ...$128,000.00 

Judicial. 

I  Attorney-General $8,000.00 

I  Solicitor-General 7,500.00 

3  Assistant  Attorneys-General 5,000.00 

I  Solicitor  of  Internal  Revenue 5,000.00 

I  Naval  Solicitor 3,500.00 

I  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury 5,000.00 

I  Assistant  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury 3,000.00 

34  Attaches  of  Department  of  Justice 46,570.00 

I  Chief- Justice  of  United  Slates  Supreme  Court  8,500.00 


358          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

No.  Service.  Compensation. 

8  Associate  Justices $64,000.00 

9  Circuit  Court  Judges 54,000.00 

52  District     "          "       ....• 189,500.00 

I   Reporter  of  United  States  Supreme  Court....  2,500.00 

I   Marshal              "           "             "              "     3,500.00 

I  Chief- Justice  Supreme  Court  of  Dist.  Columbia  4,500.00 

4  Associate  Judges 16,000.00 

5  Judges  of  United  States  Court  of  Claims. 20,000.00 

4  Attaches  of    "          "           "             "  7,340.00 

27  Judges  of  Territorial  Courts 81,000.00 

63  United  States  District  Attorneys 19,150.00 

56        "  "     Marshals 11,700.00 

275  Total $575,260.00 

Treasury. 

1  Secretary  of  Treasury $8,000.00 

2  Assistant  Secretaries 7,000.00 

2  Comptrollers 8,000.00 

I   Commissioner  of  Customs 3,000.00 

6  Auditors 18,000.00 

I  Treasurer 6,500.00 

1  Assistant  Treasurer 2,800.00 

2  Cashiers 5,300.00 

2  Registers  of  Treasury 5,000.00 

2  Comptrollers  of  Currency 7,500.00 

4  Commissioners  of  Internal  Revenue 15,500.00 

2300  Attaches  of  Treasury  Department  proper..  2,760,000.00 

100  Attaches  of  Coast  Survey 120,000.00 

650  Attaches  of  Lighthouses 585,000.00 

140  Assessors  of  Internal  Revenue 350,000.00 

241  Collectors  of  Internal  Revenue 723,000.00 

157  Local  Treasury  officials 251,200.00 

48  United  States  Depositaries 72,000.00 

50  United  States  Mail  officials 100,000.00 

198  Port  Appraisers  of  Merchandise  &  Attaches  237,600.00 

3500  Customs  officials 6,500,000.00 

300  Miscellaneous 450,000.00 

7708  Total $12,235,400.00 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  359 

Recapitulation. 

Service.  Number  of  Officials.  Compensation. 

State 694 $1,300,039.40 

Mail ,.  37,296 11,518,500.00 

Interior 1,652 2,011,500.00 

Military 351 458,000.00 

Naval 90 128,000.00 

Judicial 275 575,260.00 

Treasury 7Jo8 12,235,400.00 

Grand  Total 48,066 $28,226.699.40 

The  foregoing  statement,  as  intimated  in  the  outset,  does 
not  assume  to  be  strictly  accurate.  Such  a  statement,  for 
various  reasons,  would  be  quite  impossible.  The  service  is 
constantly  varying  in  every  particular  above  alluded  to,  and 
the  means  of  information  are  not  only  more  or  less  uncer- 
tain, but  somewhat  difficult  of  access.  The  preceding 
details,  to  some  extent,  have  been  reached  by  estimate,  but 
such  estimates,  confined  as  they  are  within  comparatively 
narrow  limits,  are  based  upon  data  furnished  the  author  by 
the  several  Departments  of  the  General  Government,  and 
the  table  may  be  relied  on  as  approximately  correct.  The 
remark  is  ventured  with  the  utmost  confidence  that  its  errors 
are  not  those  of  exaggeration.  At  every  step  of  the  tedious 
investigation  by  which  this  statement  was  secured  the  utmost 
care  was  taken  to  confine  the  enumeration  and  salaries  of 
officials  within  the  maximum  limit,  and  whenever  doubt 
or  uncertainty  arose  the  conclusion  was  that  of  a  minimum 
character.  The  table,  moreover,  only  includes  such  mem- 
bers of  the  service  as  secure  their  positions  by  appointment, 
and  does  not  embrace  those  who  are  less  directly  in  Gov- 
ernment employ.  For  instance,  there  are  eight  thousand 
mail  contractors,  and  many  sub-officials  of  the  postal  ser- 
vice, who  are  employed  by  regular  appointees  of  the  De- 
partment, that  do  not  appear  in  the  foregoing  table.  The 
same  is  true  of  all  the  other  branches  of  the  service,  such 


360         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

as  deputy  collectors  and  mere  ministerial  assistants  to  local 
officials.  The  author  has  made  an  estimate,  upon  Depart- 
mental data,  of  the  number  actually  engaged  in  the  civil 
service  of  the  Government,  both  directly  by  appointment 
and  otherwise,  and  the  conclusion  arrived  at  warrants  the 
statement  that  fully  one  hundred  thousand  people  are  so 
employed.  The  Post-office  Department  alone  was  of  the 
opinion  that  its  attaches  would  equal  the  number  above 
given,  but  the  author's  estimate,  guided  at  all  times  by 
minimum  calculations,  resulted  in  the  conclusion  above 
stated. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  table  does  not  assume  to  give 
a  detailed  statement  of  either  the  manner  of  appointment 
or  the  different  grades  of  the  members  of  the  service. 
Such  a  course  would  have  both  exceeded  the  limits  and  pre- 
judiced the  relevancy  of  this  discussion.  In  reference  to 
the  first,  the  President  appoints  all  the  more  prominent 
officials  separately  named  under  the  different  headings  of 
the  table,  subject  to  the  confirmation  of  the  Senate.  These 
iriclude  cabinet  and  foreign  ministers,  consuls  and  consular 
agents,  heads  of  bureaus,  collectors  of  customs,  major 
internal  revenue  officials,  postmasters  whose  salaries  exceed 
one  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  land  commissioners, 
superintendents  of  Indian  affairs,  Indian  agents,  etc.  etc. 
These  presidential  appointments  are  about  two  thousand 
eight  hundred  in  number,  and  the  same  consist  of  about 
twelve  hundred  postmasters,  two  hundred  and  twenty-five 
officials  of  the  three  classes  last  above  named,  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  members  of  the  diplomatic  service,  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  members  of  the  judiciary,  and  the 
remainder  mostly  relate  to  the  business  connected  with  the 
Department  of  Finance.  The  other  members  of  the  ser- 
vice are  appointed  by  heads  of  Departments  or  major  local 
officials,  subject,  in  most  cases,  to  the  approval  of  some 
official  of  a  higher  rank,  such  as  the  chief  of  one  particular 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  361 

Department,  bureau  or  branch.  For  instance,  the  attaches 
of  the  customs  service  are  appointed  by  the  collectors  of 
the  various  ports,  subject  to  the  confirmation  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury.  So  far  as  the  grades  of  these  officials 
are  concerned,  it  is  only  in  the  Mail  and  Interior  services 
that  the  same  are  very  much  condensed  by  the  enumeration 
in  the  table.  The  first  includes  clerks  in  post-offices,  letter- 
carriers,  route-agents,  railway-office  clerks,  mail-route  mes- 
sengers, and  local  and  special  agents,  while  the  second 
embraces  the  attaches  of  the  Pension,  Patent,  Indian, 
Agricultural  and  Educational  bureaus. 

The  way  is  now  opened  for  the  discussion  of  a  reform  in 
the  present  system.  This  branch  of  the  general  topic  has 
been  made  the  subject  of  extended  comment  by  various 
journals  and  periodicals,  and  although  necessarily,  for  the 
most  part,  of  a  somewhat  vague  and  desultory  character, 
many  valuable  suggestions  have  thereby  been  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  public  mind.  Up  to  the  present  time, 
however  (the  spring  of  1872),  the  assertion  is  ventured  that 
a  feasible,  practical  system  of  civil  service,  in  extenso,  has 
not  resulted  from  the  labors  of  those  who  have  given  the 
matter  special  thought  and  consideration.  The  author's 
treatment  of  the  subject  may  eventuate  in  suggestions 
equally  if  not  more  impracticable  than  those  above  men- 
tioned. .  The  problem  is  not  easy  of  solution,  and  the 
annexed  remarks  are  offered,  not  as  the  expression  of  means 
which  would  put  our  civil  service  upon  an  entirely  healthy 
footing,  but  as  those  which  would  closely  approximate  to 
that  end.  Perfection  is  the  result  of  experience  and  not 
of  theory,  and  here,  as  in  every  instance  of  a  similar 
nature,  such  an  end  must  be  reached  by  the  double  process 
of  analysis  and  synthesis,  and  not  by  either  alone.  In 
other  words,  a  system  must  be  built  upon  existing  facts, 
instead  of  speculative  or  hypothetical  propositions.  Consti- 
tutions, charters,  governments,  and  all  rules  of  action 

31  Q 


362         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

which  stand  the  test  of  time,  are  learned  and  not  devised. 
A  reform  in  our  system  of  civil  service,  if  it  is  to  live, 
must  be  based  upon  the  idea  of  removing  the  past  causes 
which  have  created  its  present  evils,  and  not  be  predicated 
•upon  the  basis  of  mere  invention.  The  first  is  indeed  reform 
— the  latter  is  merely  change.  These  prefatory  statements 
will  most  rigorously  govern  the  following  discussion. 

The  evils  of  the  present  system  are  due  entirely  to  the 
motives  which  direct  its  management.  There  are-  two 
methods  of  attempting  their  correction.  One  is  by  arbi- 
trary, prohibitory  law — the  other  by  removing  the  cause 
which  generates  the  motive — by  changing  the  springs  of 
action  which  control  the  management  of  the  service.  The 
first  is  never,  the  latter  always,  entirely  effective.  This 
general  principle  has  received  repeated  expression  in  prior 
discussions  in  this  work,  but  its  importance  gives  abundant 
excuse  for  its  reiteration  whenever  its  application  is  deemed 
advisable.  In  pursuance  of  this  principle,  a  series  of 
propositions  will  now  be  stated,  which,  if  put  in  practice, 
would  greatly  reform  our  present  system,  if  not  entirely 
cure  it  of  its  many  defects.  These  propositions,  which 
will  be  discussed  sufficiently  at  length  hereafter,  are — 

1.  One  term  for  the  President  of  the  United  States; 

2.  Forbid  Congressional  recommendation  for  office  ; 

3.  Make  heads  of  Departments   and  other   appointing 
agencies  ineligible  for  office  under  the  General  Govern- 
ment during  the  next  succeeding  Administration  ; 

4.  Elect  such  local  officials  as  postmasters,  collectors  of 
customs  and  assessors  and  collectors  of  internal  revenue  ; 

5.  Forbid  members  of  the  service  from  holding  any  other 
office,  under  either  a  State  or  the  United  States,  during  the 
rule  of  the  Administration  by  which  they  are  appointed, 
and  also  from  engaging  in  State  politics  further  than  exer- 
cising the  right  of  suffrage  ; 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  363 

6.  Forbid   political   assessments  upon  members  of  the 
service ; 

7.  Establish  a  tenure  of  office  for  members  of  the  service, 
to  hold,  upon  condition  of  good  behavior,  till  removal  by 
the  next  Administration ; 

8.  Pay  larger  salaries ; 

9.  Apportion  all  offices,  except  cabinet  ministers,  foreign 
ministers,  Territorial  and  scientific  officials,  members  of 
the  judiciary,  heads  of  bureaus  and  branches,  and  such  per- 
sonal assistants  as  private   secretaries,  among  the   several 
States ; 

10.  Fill  all  offices,  except  those  mentioned  in  the  fourth 
and  ninth  paragraphs,  by  drawing  names,  upon  the  basis 
of  an  apportionment  as  above  stated,  from  the  inhabitants 
of  the  several  States,  counties,  cities,  towns  and  villages, 
irrespective  of  party,  upon  a  principle  similar  to  that  by 
which  trial-juries  are  selected,  and  from  such  list  let  the 
appointing  agency  make  its  nomination  ; 

11.  Exclude  all  newspaper  attache's  from  positions  in  the 
service ; 

12.  Establish  a  Government  journal  or  periodical  for  the 
publication  of  the  laws. 

Comment  will  now  be  offered  on  each  of  these  proposi- 
tions, with  the  attempt  to  show  not  only  that,  taken  to- 
gether, they  conform  to  the  general  principle  of  successful 
reform  stated  in  the  outset,  but  also  that  they  strike  at  the 
root  of  all  the  major  evils  of  the  present  system,  and  tend 
to  the  establishment  of  a  civil  service  institution  for  the 
General  Government  which  would  be  at  the  same  time 
healthy,  satisfactory,  adequate  and  substantial.  Before  at- 
tention is  separately  directed  to  the  propositions  above 
stated  a  little  general  remark  is  pertinent  as  to  the  feasi- 
bility of  the  entire  scheme.  It  will  be  readily  noticed  that 
the  same  cannot  be  legally  effected  by  the  interposition  of 
mere  statute  law.  For  the  attainment  of  this  end  a  change 


364          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

in  the  national  Constitution  would  be  imperative.  The 
change,  however,  would  not  be  difficult  to  secure,  as  it 
would  operate  to  establish  equality  of  opportunity,  and  would 
be,  in  every  respect,  in  perfect  consonance  with  the  genius 
and  spirit  of  our  institutions.  The  precise  limits  of  this 
change  will  be  hereafter  noticed ;  the  point  is  here  alluded 
to  for  the  purpose  of  disarming  unnecessary  and  fruitless 
criticism.  Of  the  several  propositions  in  their  respective 
order. 

I .   One  Term  for  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

This  is  a  principle  which  requires  no  discussion  at  the 
hands  of  the  author  to  prove  either  its  necessity  or  advan- 
tage. It  draws  to  its  consideration  no  charm  of  novelty, 
but  its  eminent  desirability  has  waxed  instead  of  waned 
under  the  almost  ceaseless  criticism  which  its  maintenance 
has  provoked.  If  the  prejudicial  effect  of  the  present  sys- 
tem upon  the  chief  executive,  and  through  him  upon  the 
politics  and  national  prosperity  of  the  nation,  as  stated  in 
a  prior  portion  of  this  chapter,  is  for  a  moment  recalled,  a 
little  impartial  reflection  cannot  possibly  fail  to  show  how 
complete  an  eradication  of  the  evils  there  stated  the  adop- 
tion of  this  provision  would  secure.  Humanity  is,  at  best, 
imperfect,  and  the  President  of  the  United  States  cannot  be 
reasonably  supposed  to  form  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  With  the  possibility  placed  before  him  of  occupying 
the  administrative  chair  of  the  nation  for  a  second  term, 
history  proves  that  much  of  his  time  and  attention  is  de- 
voted to  the  attainment  of  that  end.  The  hope  of  such 
success,  indeed,  shapes  the  entire  policy  of  his  Government, 
and  the  record  of  every  Administration  since  1829,  with 
the  exception  perhaps  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  is  impartially 
given  in  the  statement  that  the  civil  service  of  the  nation 
has  been  completely  prostituted  by  the  chief  executive  to 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  365 

the  purpose  of  re-election.  The  power  which  he  wields  in 
this  direction,  in  the  way  of  Governmental  patronage,  is  al- 
most inappreciable,  for  although  he  directly  appoints  only 
about  three  thousand  members  of  the  service,  yet  his  imme- 
diate appointees  select  the  remainder,  and  his  influence  is 
thus  felt  to  the  extreme  outpost  of  the  army  of  officials 
which  makes  up  the  entire  force.  Taking  into  considera- 
tion the  amount  of  money  obtained  by  political  assessments 
of  civil  service  officials,  and  the  sum  paid  for  salaries,  the 
President's  power  for  re-election  is  measured  by  the  efforts 
of  one  hundred  thousand  sworn  supporters  and  the  annual 
distribution  of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  This 
power  is  used,  shamefully  used,  and  never  so  much  so  as  at 
present. 

The  effect  of  making  the  President  of  the  United  States 
ineligible  for  a  second  term  is  self-apparent.  His  leading 
ambition  in  that  event,  instead  of  an  aim  to  extend  the 
term  of  his  personal  elevation,  would  be  to  so  administer 
the  affairs  of  the  nation  that,  when  the  insignia  of  his  of- 
fice should  be  laid  aside,  no  man  could  point  to  a  blot  upon 
his  official  record  or  give  evidence  of  a  mistake  in  his  Ad- 
ministration. He  would,  in  short,  to  use  a  homely  but  ex- 
pressive phrase,  be  put  upon  his  honor,  and  entirely  beyond 
the  reach  of  sinister  motives  or  unscrupulous  men.  Con- 
gressmen might  clamor,  politicians  might  importune,  and 
friends  even  might  press  their  claims  fora  place  in  the  civil 
service  of  the  nation,  but  all  alike  would  be  powerless  to 
mould  the  will  or  gain,  the  favor  of  executive  power. 
Aside  from  his  meagre  salary,  reputation  would  be  the 
President's  sole  emolument,  and  his  position  (purely  selfish, 
but  emphatically  wholesome)  would  be,  "Gentlemen,  stand 
aloof!  I  hold  the  highest  honor  in  the  gift  of  the  world, 
and  that  for  the  only  time.  My  official  career  is  drawing 
to  a  close,  and  no  man  shall  be  appointed  to  a  place  of 
public  duty  or  trust  unless  he  can  answer  the  demands  of 
II  • 


306  THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  people  who  elected  me,  reflect  honor  upon  my  Admin- 
istration and  credit  upon  myself." 

There  is  one  objection  which  will  be  made  to  this  propo- 
sition, which,  if  tenable,  would  attach  to  more  of  the  re- 
maining ones  above  stated.  It  will  be  referred  to  now 
in  a  general  sense,  once  for  all,  although  circumstances 
will  require  its  more  special  attention  hereafter.  It  is 
this :  The  plea  is  made  that  a  man  who  has  served  in 
an  offiqial  position  for  a  single  term  is  better  fitted  for 
the  discharge  of  its  duties  than  one  who  is  inexperi- 
enced, and  therefore  a  re-election  should  not  be  made 
impossible.  Applied  to  the  legislative  department  of  our 
Government,  the  point  is  partially  pertinent,  and  is  fully 
met  by  the  constitutional  provision  which  bars  a  change 
in  the  Senate  at  the  same  time  beyond  the  limit  of  one- 
third  of  its  members.  This,  moreover,  is  abundantly  suf- 
ficient, and  should  not  be  extended  to  the  lower  branch 
of  the  national  legislature.  The  American  republic  is  one 
of  progress,  and  is  constantly  developing  new  interests, 
which  our  history  has  proved  are  better  served  by  changes 
in  legislative  representation  than  by  continued  adherence 
to  the  same  officials  of  this  particular  description.  This  is 
not  all.  Intelligence  is  the  only  true  title  of  nobility  in  the 
United  States.  Its  possession  is  the  greatest  desideratum 
of  every  well-balanced  American  mind,  and  the  extent  of 
intellectual  attainments  is  augmented  with  the  passage  of 
every  decade  and  doubled  with  every  successive  generation. 
We  know  no  impossibility,  and  present  servants  of  the  na- 
tion are,  with  us,  never  the  only  ones  who  can  adequately  fill 
the  position.  Buffon  has  with  partial  truth  remarked,  that 
"genius  is  only  a  protracted  patience."  However  defect- 
ive the  philosopher's  aphorism  as  an  unqualified  rule,  cer- 
tain it  is  that  genius,  whatever  it  is,  is  greatly  enhanced  by 
education,  and  to  this  end  American  institutions  are  con- 
stantly tending.  Whenever  occasion  requires  there  may 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  367 

always  be  found,  in  the  educated  ranks  of  the  American 
people,  Presidents,  Senators  and  Representatives  equally  as 
able,  efficient  and  honest  as  the  then  present  incumbents, 
and  with  our  present  system  of  civil  service,  by  means  of 
which  all  three  are  the  component  parts  of  a  political  bar- 
gain, a  good  deal  more  so.  As  applied  to  the  chief  execu- 
tive, moreover,  the  argument  is  entirely  overborne  by  the 
advantages,  already  expressed,  to  be  derived  from  a  one- 
term  principle.  The  ground  traversed  will  not  be  re- 
viewed. The  prejudice,  if  any,  sustained  by  the  public 
service  during  the  brief  interval  in  which  a  newly-elected 
President  is  grasping  the  reins  of  government  is  as  nothing 
compared  with  that  which  results  from  the  abuses  already 
described  under  our  present  system.  Beside  all  this,  there 
is  an  argument  of  a  purely  abstract  character.  Rotation  in 
office  is  one  of  the  fundamental  elements  of  republican  gov- 
ernments. It  is  one  of  the  boundary-lines,  indeed,  be- 
tween republican  and  monarchical  rule.  An  argument  for 
a  continued  fixity  of  official  tenure  is  an  argument  for  a 
change  from  the  former  to  the  latter — a  plea  for  power  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  to  the  exclusion  of  the  many,  for  oligar- 
chy and  aristocracy  instead  of  self-government  and  equality. 
It  cannot  have  force  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  "The  sea 
of  liberty  is  always  stormy,"  it  is  true,  but  it  is  an  element 
of  agitation  which  always  purifies  and  never  corrupts — an 
exponent  of  healthy  life  instead  of  withering  decay. 

2.  Forbid  Congressional  Recommendation  for  Office. 
Upon  this  isolated  point  very  little  need  be  said.  The 
proposition  does  not  have  its  origin  here,  but  is  due  to 
Lyman  Trumbull.  It  is  perfectly  germane  to  the  one-term 
principle  just  dismissed,  and  with  it  goes  hand  in  hand. 
In  this  connection,  as  in  the  next  preceding  one,  a  detailed 
recurrence  will  not  be  had  to  the  evils  of  the  present  system 
as  connected  with  our  national  legislators.  They  arc  well 


368         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

remembered.  They  may  be  all  summed  up  in  the  single 
statement  that  the  first  and  best  efforts  of  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives are  given  to  the  procurement  of  places  in  the 
civil  service  for  their  constituents  in  order  to  secure  a  re- 
election, and  that  the  real  interests  of  the  country  are 
thereby  neglected.  The  effect  of  the  proposed  regulation 
is  capable  of  a  definition  equally  brief  with  the  evils  of  the 
opposite  rule  now  in  force.  The  members  of  Congress 
would  be  placed  upon  an  independent  and  immovable  foot- 
ing, and  would  be  judged  of  solely  by  their  merit,  instead 
of  by  their  services  in  begging  offices  of  the  President  and 
several  Departments.  Upon  their  fidelity,  ability  and  ac- 
tual fitness  for  their  high  positions  would  alone  hinge  their 
prospects  of  re-election,  and  they  would  go  before  the 
people  and  the  country  upon  no  collateral  or  inferior  issues. 
There  would  be  no  official  debit-and-credit  account  between 
them  and  the  electors,  and  the  rivals  who  would  essay  to 
succeed  them  would  have  no  bribe  of  "spoils"  to  hold  out 
for  votes  to  accomplish  their  purpose.  A  single  objection 
is  yet  to  be  raised  to  the  proposition,  but  a  quasi  one  will 
be  anticipated  before  the  same  is  dismissed. 

The  question  may  be  asked,  Why  should  not  members  of 
Congress  be  made  ineligible  for  a  second  term  as  well  as 
the  chief  executive?  The  cases  are  not  at  all  parellel. 
They  are  indeed  hardly  similar.  Members  of  Congress  can 
never  actually  appoint — the  President  of  the  United  States 
always  can.  The  above  fact  furnishes  a  key  to  the  entire 
position.  The  President  appoints,  Congressmen  recom- 
mend. The  former  made  ineligible  for  re-election,  the 
motive  for  bad  appointments  is  destroyed.  The  latter  for- 
bidden to  recommend,  improper  means  for  the  continuance 
of  their  official  status  are  placed  beyond  their  reach.  The 
evil  is  removed.  The  scheme  goes  to  the  extent  of  existing 
facts.  Beyond  that,  as  stated  in  the  outset,  this  discussion 
does  not  tend. 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  369 

3.  Make  Heads  of  Departments  and  other  Appoint- 
ing Agencies  Ineligible  for  Office  under  the  General 
Government  during  the  Next  Succeeding  Adminis- 
tration. 

The  principle  which  underlies  this  proposition  is  precisely 
similar  to  that  upon  which  a  single  term  of  office  for  the 
chief  executive  is  demanded.  The  cases  are  not  in  every 
or  even  many  respects  parallel,  but  the  same  motives  govern 
the  action  of  one  as  the  other.  The  President  seeks  a  re- 
election to  the  same  official  position — the  parties  above 
named  are  looking  for  an  advancement  of  their  political 
status.  As  already  seen,  these  last  named  hold  the  gift  of 
twenty-five  thousand  offices  in  their  hands.  They  hold  this 
prerogative,  however,  with  an  express  condition  attached  to 
the  exercise  thereof — namely,  that  they  so  use  it  as  to  secure 
the  promotion  of  the  personal  aims  of  their  chief.  In  any 
event  his  success  is  theirs,  so  far  as  the  assurance  of  their 
immediate  official  tenure  is  concerned,  for  the  next  succeed- 
ing Administration.  The  power  of  these  officials  upon  the 
politics  of  the  nation  is,  in  fact,  twofold.  Their  appoint- 
ments to  office,  while  they  tend  to  advance  the  interests  of 
the  chief  executive,  operate  still  more  forcibly  to  promote 
their  own,  and  the  immense  patronage  of  Government 
which  it  is  their  privilege  to  bestow  is  abundantly  sufficient 
to  secure  for  them  almost  any  reasonable  advancement  to 
which  they  may  aspire.  The  result  is  injurious  in  the  ex- 
treme. With  the  exception,  here  and  there,  of  an  isolated 
instance,  there  is  a  constant  bargaining  of  spoils  and  place 
between  these  officials  and  their  constituents,  the  considera- 
tion of  which  is  unremitting  effort  for  the  personal  aggrand- 
izement of  the  former,  for  which  labor,  moreover,  the  Gen- 
eral Government — that  is,  the  people — pay  the  stipulated  com- 
pensation. A  little  reflection  cannot  but  make  it  apparent 
that  such  a  change  as  this  would  do  away  with  much  of  the 
evil  of  the  present  system.  This  proposition,  indeed,  is  in 

Q2 


37O         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

two  respects  a  cumulative  remedy.  Taken  in  connection 
with  the  first  one  above  stated,  it  helps  to  remove  the 
President  from  the  influence  of  improper  motives  by  taking 
from  him  powerful  means  of  advancement;  and  within 
itself  it  operates  not  only  to  check  these  officials  from 
giving  aid  to  the  chief  executive,  but  also  from  securing 
their  personal  elevation.  And  this  for  the  simple  reason 
that,  as  they  would  be  ineligible  to  official  position  under 
the  General  Government  for  the  next  succeeding  four  years, 
the  sole  benefit  to  be  obtained  from  their  office,  aside  from 
their  petty  salary,  would  be  the  safety  of  their  good  name 
and  the  enhancement  of  their  individual  honor. 

Any  difficulty  which  seemingly  attaches  to  the  working 
of  this  principle  is  entirely  dispelled  by  the  operation  of 
the  eighth  and  ninth  propositions  above  stated.  The  first, 
properly  adjusted,  would  overbear  the  reluctance  to  be 
banished  from  official  power  under  the  General  Govern- 
ment for  a  period  of  four  years,  and  the  latter  would  render 
offence  to  any  party  or  class  absolutely  impossible,  save 
through  the  inherent  meanness  or  moral  turpitude  of  the 
ruling  official. 

A  single  word  as  to  the  period  and  character  of  official 
ineligibility  prescribed  by  the  proposition  now  under  con- 
sideration. It  will  be  noticed  that  the  proscription  does 
not  attach  to  official  place  under  the  government  of  any 
State.  That  would  seem  both  wholly  unnecessary  and 
manifestly  unwarrantable.  The  remedy,  in  preventing  im- 
proper elevation  to  office  under  the  General  Government, 
goes  to  the  extent  of  the  evil  under  examination,  and  be- 
yond that  this  discussion  has  nothing  to  do.  The  period 
of  such  proscription,  moreover,  is  sufficiently  long  to  ren- 
der wholly  unavailable  any  effort  of  these  officials  while  in 
office  to  further  their  own  ends  when  such  period  shall  have 
passed,  and  yet  not  so  greatly  extended  as  to  exclude  men 
of  proper  capacity  and  reputation  from  accepting  appoint- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  3/1 

ments  to  such  positions,  provided  the  pecuniary  emoluments 
are  made  reasonably  adequate. 

4.  Elect  such  Local  Officials  as  Postmasters,  Collectors 
of  Customs  and  Assessors  and  Collectors  of  Internal 

Revenue. 

The  principle  which  characterizes  this  proposition  is  two- 
fold— namely :  it  gives  to  the  people  the  right  of  choosing 
such  officials  as  are  intrusted  with  the  discharge  of  duties 
of  a  purely  local  character,  and  takes  from  the  executive 
department  of  Government  the  distribution  of  a  large 
amount  of  official  patronage.  It  not  only  gives  to  the 
people  what  is  manifestly  an  essential  right — namely,  that 
of  choosing  such  persons  as  they  see  fit  to  administer  the 
restricted  internal  affairs  of  their  respective  localities — but 
also  takes  from  the  national  Administration  some  of  the 
most  powerful  levers  which  have  ever  been  applied  to  con- 
tinue its  ascendency.  The  appointment  of  the  members  of 
the  service  above  named  by  the  executive  department  ever 
has — and  in  a  great  measure  during  the  latter  portion  of  the 
present  Administration — been  entirely  governed  by  the  sup- 
posed ability  of  the  appointees  to  manipulate  the  machinery 
of  local  politics  in  the  interest  of  the  chief  executive  and 
his  sworn  adherents.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  customs 
department.  This  discussion  assumes  to  deal  with  princi- 
ples alone,  and  not  with  individuals  in  any  single  particular 
(to  such  a  course  it  cannot  condescend),  and  the  following 
citation  of  facts  in  support  of  the  proposition  now  under 
consideration  must  be  viewed  strictly  from  such  a  stand- 
point. Reference  is  had  to  the  abuse  of  the  customs  ser- 
vice by  the  present  Administration  at  the  ports  of  New 
York,  Troy,  New  Orleans  and  those  of  Alabama.  If  our 
political  history  was  entirely  barren  of  other  instances  of 
maladministration  in  this  direction,  the  course  of  our  exe- 
cutive department  since  the  commencement  of  the  year 


3/2         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

1871  has  more  than  sufficed  to  render  the  change  here  ad- 
vocated absolutely  imperative.  To  say  that  the  policy  pur- 
sued has  been  merely  unwise  and  injudicious  would  be 
simply  an  abuse  of  terms.  It  has  been  positively  disgrace- 
ful, scandalous  and  defiantly  illegal.  The  management  of 
the  customs  business  of  the  ports  above  named,  to  say 
nothing  of  similar  proceedings  in  other  States,  since  the 
period  above  named,  furnishes  one  of  the  most  revolting 
exhibitions  of  the  prostitution  of  the  public  business  and 
the  squandering  the  people's  money  for.  the  promotion  of 
personal  aims  which  this  or  any  other  country  has  ever 
witnessed.  It  is  a  pungent  commentary  upon  the  present 
system — an  unanswerable  argument  to  the  theory  that  influ- 
ence shall  govern  the  appointments  to  our  civil  service — a 
striking  illustration  of  the  exchange  of  spoils  for  political 
labor — an  open,  unblushing  example  of  the  employment  of 
adventurers  by  the  executive  department  of  the  United 
States  to  further  the  personal  interests  of  its  chiefs  ;  for 
>yhich  end  the  people  have  been  taxed  and  the  public 
revenues  misapplied. 

Extension  of  this  particular  argument  is  wholly  unneces- 
sary. The  benefit  to  be  derived  from  the  change  now 
proposed  has  been  clearly  foreshadowed  by  the  considera- 
tion of  the  three  prior  propositions.  They  are  integral 
and  indissoluble  parts  of  a  system  which  has  for  its  end  the 
destruction  of  motives  for  improper  conduct,  the  removal 
of  both  appointors  and  appointees  from  unwholesome  influ- 
ence, and  the  neutralization  of  personal  ambition  for  future 
individual- gain. 

A  single  word  is  pertinent  upon  the  subject  of  civil  ser- 
vice elections  in  the  abstract.  They  should  be  closely 
confined  within  the  designated  limits  of  this  discussion ; 
that  is,  they  should  only  attach  to  the  choice  of  officials 
who  administer  purely  local  interests,  as  distinguished  from 
those  with  which  the  people  of  the  collective  States  are  co»^ 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  373 

cerned.  In  not  a  single  instance  should  they  extend  to 
either  the  choice  of  members  of  the  judiciary  or  to  the 
selection  of  officers  who  are  to  serve  the  country  at  large, 
such  as  foreign  ministers,  consuls  general,  etc.  etc.  The 
reason  of  this  is  evident  and  unimpeachable.  The  evils  of 
an  elective  judiciary  are  too  well  and  generally  known  to 
require  recital  in  this  connection,  and  the  intimate  rela- 
tions of  such  officials  as  are  above  named  with  the  execu- 
tive department,  from  which  they  receive  both  general  and 
special  instructions,  render  it  eminently  fitting  that  their 
choice  should  rest  with  the  President,  while  the  ineligibility 
of  the  latter  for  a  second  term  gives  abundant  warrant  of 
wise  and  discreet  appointments. 

5.  Forbid  Members  of  the  Service  from  holding  any 
other  Office,  under  either  a  State  or  the  United  States, 
during  the  Rule  of  the  Administration  by 'which  they 
were  Appointed,  and  also  from  Engaging  in  State 
Politics  further  than  Exercising  the  Right  of  Suf- 
frage. 

The  above  principle,  to  what  extent  it  is  unnecessary  to 
detail,  is  partially  provided  for  by  existing  laws.  Its 
object  is  sole,  single  and  clearly  apparent.  It  seeks  to 
prevent  the  possibility  of  making  civil  service  officials  tools 
in  the  hands  of  the  appointing  agencies  for  the  attainment 
of  their  personal  ends.  With  the  various  provisions  of 
ineligibility  stated  in  the  outset,  this  proposition  is  a  cumu- 
lative remedy,  and  the  seventh  one  renders  the  otherwise 
objectionable  character  of  the  quasi  proscription  entirely 
nugatory.  It  has,  like  some  other  features  of  the  entire 
scheme,  a  constitutional  aspect,  which,  in  connection  with 
the  others,  will  receive  a  collective  consideration  farther  on. 

6.  Forbid  Political  Assessments. 

Upon  this  point  also  very  little  need  be  said.     As  to  its 
justice,  argument  is  quite  unnecessary,  ami  its  jxilicy  the 
32 


374          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

slightest  reflection  will  readily  affirm.  It  is  designed  to 
place  the  members  of  the  service  upon  an  independent 
footing,  bar  the  appointing  agencies  from  securing  illegal 
means  for  their  future  aggrandizement,  and,  with  the  pro- 
visions of  ineligibility  before  mentioned,  together  with  the 
tenure  established  by  the  seventh  proposition  of  the  scheme, 
would  not  run  counter  to  a  single  interest  or  clash  with  any 
direct  or  collateral  institution  of  the  service. 

7.  Establish  a  Tenure  of  Office  for  Members  of  the 
Service,  to  hold,  upon  Condition  of  Good  Behavior, 
till  Removal  by  the  next  Succeeding  Administration. 
The  object  hereby  sought  is  identical  with  that  described 
in  the  next  preceding  paragraph,  and  is  an  essential  feature 
of  the  entire  scheme  now  under  discussion.  The  conditions 
thereby  imposed  upon  members  of  the  service  are,  in  some 
respects,  somewhat  exacting,  and  should  be  offset  with  an 
assurance  of  a  well-defined  permanence  of  official  position. 
Its  tendency,  however,  to  place  the  officials  upon  such  a 
footing,  by  removing  them  beyond  the  whim  or  caprice  of 
the  appointing  agency,  as  will  only  require  at  their  hands  a 
faithful  performance  of  their  duties,  is  the  cardinal  point 
of  the  proposition.  It  requires  neither  discussion  nor 
extended  statement  to  establish  its  pertinence  and  desira- 
bility. 

8.  Pay  Larger  Salaries. 

In  repelling  an  attack  made  upon  the  system  of  awarding 
heavy  compensation  to  the  judges  of  the  English  courts, 
Lord  Brougham  gave  utterance  to  the  quaint  but  truthful 
expression,  that  "dear  justice  is  very  much  to  be  preferred 
to  cheap  injustice."  The  declaration  is  a  monument  of 
economic  wisdom,  and  is  applicable  to  every  department 
of  every  form  of  government.  The  scope  of  the  aphorism 
of  the  English  publicist  may  well,  indeed,  be  so  extended 
as  to  include  every  branch  of  the  public  service.  The 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  -?75 

idea  that  public  economy  consists  in  awarding  the  smallest 
possible  compensation  for  the  services  required  by  Govern- 
ment is  a  grave  mistake,  and  has  and  ever  will  result  in 
irreparable  injury  to  the  national  weal.  It  is,  in  short,  the 
worst  kind  of  extravagance.  There  is  not  an  office  in  the 
K'fl  °f  the  American  people  to-day  which  offers  sufficient  com- 
pensation to  those  who  are  capable  of  discharging  its  duties. 
The  honor  which  attaches  to  these  positions  is,  of  course,  a 
sufficient  inducement  to  men  who  have,  either  by  ancestral 
labor  or  forethought,  or  their  own  wisdom  or  good-fortune, 
possessed  themselves  of  moneyed  advantages ;  but  all  able 
men  are  not  wealthy  men  :  the  greater  portion  of  American 
talent,  indeed,  is  associated  with  comparative  poverty.  It  has 
fallen  heir  to  no  landed  or  personal  estates,  like  the  aris- 
tocracy of  the  English  realm  or  continental  Europe,  but 
through  the  mobility  of  republican  institutions  has  hewn 
its  way  to  genuine  greatness — intelligence — and  has  had  no 
time  for  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  To  invite  it  to  serve 
the  public  for  less  reward  than  it  can  realize  from  private 
business  is  not  alone  bad  policy  and  insulting :  it  oflers  a 
premium  upon  ignorance.  The  working  of  the  principle 
is  clearly  evidenced  by  historical  facts.  Honor  is  tempting, 
but  wealth,  to  men  of  moderate  means,  is  the  most  seduc- 
tive of  the  two.  The  first  stands  alone — the  latter,  under 
our  present  system  of  civil  service,  can  command  the  former. 
The  consequence  is,  that  the  Government  in  isolated 
instances  is  ably  served  by  able,  wealthy  men,  but  in  the 
majority  of  cases  is  poorly,  and  too  often  dishonestly, 
served  by  men  whose  inferior  talents  render  the  acceptance 
of  places  in  the  public  service  an  advantage  instead  of  a 
sacrifice.  It  is  a  policy  which  any  intelligent  management 
of  private  interests  would  not  for  a  moment  contemplate. 
This  assertion  is  pointedly  illustrated  by  a  somewhat  recent 
action  of  the  legislature  of  the  State  of  Illinois.  After  the 
adoption  of  the  new  State  constitution  it  became  necessary 


THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

to  have  a  thorough  reorganization  of  the  railroad  policy  of 
the  State.  A  commission  was  decided  upon  for  the  work, 
and  the  State  legislature,  after  a  good  deal  of  moralizing 
upon  retrenchment  and  kindred  topics,  ordered  the  employ- 
ment of  three  commissioners  at  the  annual  salary,  each,  of 
$3500.  The  railroad  corporations  of  the  State  also  em- 
ployed a  "commission"  to  look  after  their  interests  in  the 
proposed  reorganization,  and  directed  their  agent  to  employ 
the  best  men  who  could  be  obtained  for  a  several  salary  of 
$25,000  per  annum.  It  need  not  be  very  much  doubted 
whether  the  State  of  Illinois  or  its  railroad  companies  will 
advantage  most  by  the  new  institution. 

Let  attention  be  directed  for  a  moment  to  the  salaries  of 
our  judicial  officials,  as  seen  in  the  table  hereinbefore  con- 
tained. They  are  absolutely  contemptible  in  their  littleness 
when  the  character  of  the  required  service  is  taken  into 
consideration.  The  chief-justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  receives  an  annual  salary  of  $8500.  A 
police  judge  of  the  city  of  New  York,  whose  business  it  is 
to  hear  cases  involving  petty  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 
receives  $10,000  for  his  yearly  stipend.  Hundreds  of  pri- 
vate corporations  throughout  the  country,  moreover,  pay 
equally  large,  and  oftentimes  greater,  salaries  for  legal  coun- 
sel and  advice.  The  force  of  the  remark  is  equally  appli- 
cable to  the  compensation  allowed  the  chief  executive  and 
members  of  Congress.  In  both  departments  the  country 
is,  in  isolated  instances,  it  is  true,  efficiently,  honestly  and 
brilliantly  served,  but  all  have  had  incumbents  whom  the 
people  would  have  profited  by  paying  them  their  legal  dues 
for  remaining  in  private  life,  and  employing  capable  men 
to  perform  the  duties  of  the  office  at  five  times  the  regular 
allowance. 

These  general  remarks  contain  nearly  everything  which 
is  specially  involved  in  the  particular  point  now  under  con- 
sideration. The  proportion,  however,  is  indispensable  to 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  377 

the  general  scheme  herein  submitted.  There  are  elements 
of  personal  and  political  proscription  therein  contained 
which  must  be  offset  by  inducements  sufficient  to  neutralize 
the  force  of  their  restrictions.  This  end  would  be  obtained 
by  the  payment  of  larger  salaries  than  private  vocations 
will  afford,  and,  more  desirable  than  all,  would  bring  to  the 
places  of  public  trust  men  who  would  adorn  the  positions, 
honor  the  nation  and  actually  diminish  the  expense  of  Gov- 
ernment. 

This  particular  proposition  disarms  all  criticism  which 
some  discriminative  mind  may  have  ere  this  bestowed  upon 
the  general  scheme.  The  plan  was  announced  as  one  which 
would  reform  our  civil  service  by  acting  upon  the  motives 
of  men,  and  not  by  arbitrary  command.  Some  features 
of  this  scheme,  taken  alone,  are,  as  has  been  doubtless  no- 
ticed, in  the  form  of  positive,  unyielding  law,  but,  associated 
with  the  remaining  ones,  they  appeal  to  the  personal  interest 
and  welfare  of  those  which  the  Government  service  would 
invite  to  its  ranks.  This  fundamental  principle  of  the 
scheme  is  preserved  inviolate  by  the  proposition  herewith 
dismissed. 

9.  Apportion  all  offices,  except  Cabinet  Ministers,  For- 
eign Ministers,  Territorial  and  Scientific  Officials, 
Members  of  the  Jztdiciary,  Heads  of  Bureaus  and 
Branches,  and  such  Personal  Assistants  as  Private 
Secretaries,  among  the  several  States. 
As  to  the  general  principle  involved  in  this  proposition, 
it  aims  to  equalize  the  advantages  resulting  from  the  civil 
service  among  the  several  States  of  the  Union.     It  would 
tend  to  make  impossible  any  complaint  of  locality  so  often 
raised  in  the  distribution  of  political  emoluments  and  the 
choice  of   Representatives  by  the  people  at  large.     The 
proposed  apportionment,  moreover,  is  confined  within  such 
limits  as  not  to  prejudice  the  efficiency  of  the  force  in  any 
32* 


3/8          THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

single  particular.  It  will  be  noticed,  by  a  little  reflection 
(all  the  more  prominent  local  officials  having  been  chosen 
by  election,  in  accordance  with  the  proposition  hereinbefore 
advanced),  that  by  reason  of  the  exceptions  above  noted 
this  feature  of  the  scheme  attaches  solely  to  officials  of  a 
purely  ministerial  character,  as  distinguished  from  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  performance  of  discretionary  du- 
ties. While  it  is  eminently  fitting,  and  absolutely  impera- 
tive even,  that  the  appointing  agency  should  be  allowed  the 
utmost  latitude  in  the  selection  of  officials  of  the  latter 
class,  the  choice  of  the  former  rests  upon  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent foundation.  The  interests  of  the  public  demand  that 
the  comparatively  petty  claim  of  locality  shall  have  no  force 
in  the  appointment  of  servants  who  are  called  upon  to  ex- 
ercise discretionary  powers.  Parties  fit  for  such  positions 
are  more  frequently  congregated  within  restricted  territorial 
limits  than  scattered  over  different  sections  of  the  country. 
In  the  case  of  ministerial  officials,  however,  no  such  fact 
appears.  Such  inhabitants  of  every  State  or  locality  as  are 
contemplated  by  the  proposition  next  to  be  discussed  are, 
without  exception,  fully  competent  for  the  discharge  of  the 
official  duties  pertinent  to  the  present  feature  of  the  scheme. 
The  proposition  not  only  equalizes  opportunity,  in  a  rel- 
ative degree,  among  the  people  at  large,  but  operates,  in 
connection  with  its  associates,  to  prevent  the  negotiation 
of  official  place  for  political  service  and  influence.  The 
necessity  and  propriety  of  leaving  the  choice  of  such  per- 
sonal assistants  as  private  secretaries  wholly  in  the  hands 
of  the  appointing  power  requires,  of  course,  no  argument 
whatever. 

10.  Fill  all  Offices,  except  those  mentioned  in  the 
Fourth  and  Ninth  Propositions,  by  Drawing  Names, 
upon  the  Basis  of  the  Apportionment  as  stated  above, 
from  the  Inhabitants  of  the  several  States,  Counties, 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  379 

Cities,  Towns  and  Villages,  Irrespective  of  Party, 
upon  a  Principle  similar  to  that  by  "which  Trial- 
Juries  are  selected,  and  from  such  L,ist  let  the  Ap- 
pointing Agency  make  its  Nomination. 

This  proposal,  as  above  stated,  requires  a  little  amplifica- 
tion. 

First,  as  to  the  offices  embraced  by  this  proposition.  As 
to  this  point,  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  same  attaches  to 
the  merely  ministerial  officials  of  the  service  as  described 
in  the  next  preceding  paragraph. 

Second,  as  to  the  basis  upon  which  the  proposed  drawing 
should  be  made.  In  the  examination  of  a  proposed  reform 
system  a  discussion  of  a  bill  by  which  such  reform  shall  be 
secured  is  neither  relevant  nor  practicable.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  in  this  connection,  that  the  apportionment  above 
alluded  to  is  predicated  upon  the  idea  of  giving  to  the  sev- 
eral States  a  number  of  offices  in  the  civil  service  propor- 
tionate to  their  representative  population ;  that  is,  the  num- 
ber of  voters  in  each  State  shall  decide  the  number  of  of- 
fices to  be  awarded.  This  number  having  been  obtained 
by  an  apportionment  of  Congress,  the  drawing  is  to  be 
made  by  the  several  States  from  their  inhabitants.  This 
drawing  would  of  course  be  necessarily  preceded  by  a 
second  apportionment  by  the  States  among  their  several 
cities,  towns  and  villages,  upon  the  same  basis  as  the  Con- 
gressional apportionment  above  mentioned. 

Third,  as  to  the  particular  element  of  population  from 
which  the  drawing  should  be  made.  This  is  a  point  of 
considerable  nicety  if  the  fundamental  element  of  the  gen- 
eral scheme  is  to  be  preserved  inviolate.  The  paramount 
aim  of  this  scheme,  as  frequently  asserted,  is  to  place  every 
ramification  of  our  civil  service  beyond  the  reach  of  influ- 
ence. It  will  be  remembered  that  the  proposition  now 
under  discussion  advocates  a  drawing  of  officials  upon  a 


380         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

plan  "similar  to  that  by  which  trial -juries  arc  selected." 
It  does  not  say  upon  the  same  plan.  Trial-juries  are  usu- 
ally or  quite  generally  drawn  from  names  of  individuals 
selected  by  designated  authority  for  the  purpose  on  the 
score  of  intelligence.  This  element  of  intelligence  must  be 
preserved  in  the  proposed  drawing  of  civil  service  officials. 
It  must  not,  however,  be  left  to  the  direction  or  decision  of 
a  board  of  apportionment  or  other  State  authority.  The 
delegated  authority  of  a  State,  under  this  scheme,  must  not  be 
empowered  to  say  what  element  of  the  State  population  is  suf- 
ficiently intelligent,  and  what  is  not.  Such  a  rule,  although 
to  some  extent  objectionable  (to  what  extent  is  irrelevant), 
is,  in  a  certain  sense,  well  enough  for  the  selection  of  trial- 
juries.  The  duties  of  such  officials  are  undesirable,  and 
consequently  there  is  no  influence  brought  to  bear  to  secure 
the  position.  Under  the  proposed  system  of  civil  service, 
however,  the  condition  of  things  would  be  entirely  differ- 
ent. The  scheme  contemplates  the  payment  of  heavy  sal- 
aries, and  therefore  renders  the  service  attractive.  To  leave 
a  board  of  apportionment  or  other  State  authority  to  decide 
upon  the  persons  of  sufficient  intelligence  to  have  their 
names  enrolled  for  a  drawing  would  leave  an  open  door 
for  the  perpetration,  upon  a  smaller  scale,  of  the  same 
abuses  which  attach  to  the  present  system.  It  would  be  a 
reduction,  but  not  an  abrogation,  of  existing  evils.  The 
authority  vested  with  such  power  would  be  subjected  to 
both  the  importunities  and  misrepresentations  of  applicants, 
as  well  as  the  seductive  powers  of  influence.  It  would,  in 
short,  be  polluted  by  bribes. 

There  is  but  one  way  out  of  this  difficulty,  and  that  is 
rigid,  sensible  and  well  denned.  Let  the  names  enrolled 
for  a  drawing  be  those  of  voters  who  can  furnish  the  consti- 
tuted authorities  a  diploma  of  some  reputable  academic  or  other 
higher  institution.  With  this  requirement  make  no  com- 
promise whatever.  Refuse  without  exception  all  other  evi- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  381 

clences  of  intelligence,  such  as  certificates  of  private  indi- 
viduals, and  make  the  rule  unqualified  and  irrefragable. 
Is  this  proscription  ?  To  a  certain  extent,  but,  all  things 
considered,  a  very  limited  one,  and  that  of  a  most  whole- 
some and  beneficial  tendency.  The  grade  of  education 
required  is  by  no  means  high,  and  entirely  available  by  the 
masses.  The  Government  by  this  scheme  offers  a  compen- 
sation for  the  service  it  requires  greatly  in  excess  of  what 
private  parties  can  or  will  allow.  It  is  entitled  to  the  most 
absolute  warrant  of  capacity  in  return.  The  basis  of  this 
drawing,  moreover,  would  be  a  healthful  and  powerful  in- 
centive to  the  education  of  the  masses.  //  -would,  in  fact, 
in  a  passive,  silent  manner,  accomplish  for  the  United  States 
what  the  educational  laws  of  Germany  do  for  that  country — 
namely,  educate  the  entire  population. 

Fourth,  as  to  the  number  of  names  to  be  drawn.  Of 
this  little  need  be  said.  Make  the  number  double  or  treble 
that  of  the  offices  required  to  be  filled,  and  from  this  num- 
ber let  the  appointing  agency  make  its  choice.  The  inel- 
igibility  of  the  latter  for  a  second  term  of  office  gives  ample 
warrant  that  this  very  restricted  discretion  would  not  be 
abused. 

Several  of  the  more  prominent  features  of  a  bill  requisite 
to  effect  such  changes  suggested  by  the  entire  scheme,  as 
could  be  secured  otherwise  than  by  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment, will  be  briefly  stated  in  another  connection.  The 
importance  of  the  present  proposition  required  an  anticipa- 
tion of  this  statement  to  the  extent  of  giving  the  points 
above  defined. 

The  meaning  of  this  proposition  having  been  somewhat 
explained,  it  will  now  receive  a  more  general  consideration. 
It  is,  in  almost  every  particular,  mainly  supplemental  of 
the  one  which  precedes  it.  Taken  together,  the  chief  end 
sought  by  their  institution  is  the  equalization  of  opportu- 
nity. They  also  tend  in  the  general  direction  of  the  entire 


382         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

scheme — that  is,  the  separation  of  the  service  from  influence 
of  every  sort,  whether  individual  or  local.  The  equal- 
ization of  opportunity  hereby  sought  is  imperatively  de- 
manded in  order  that  the  politics  of  the  country  may  be 
saved  from  total  corruption.  The  superior  advantages 
which  are  obtained  by  a  select  class  under  our  present  sys- 
tem by  means  which  are  always  unmanly  and  disgraceful, 
not  to  say  dishonest,  occasion  more  disturbance  to  the 
material  prosperity  of  the  country  than  almost  all  other 
causes  combined.  The  remedy  advanced  by  these  features 
of  the  general  scheme  seems  not  only  adequate,  but  entirely 
practicable.  It  provides  for  an  apportionment  and  draw- 
ing, as  will  be  remembered,  irrespective  of  party.  This 
point  will  of  course  meet  the  objection  of  the  technical 
politician,  as  will  every  plan  other  than  that  of  an  unadul- 
terated spoil-system  like  the  present.  It  will,  however, 
commend  itself  to  reflecting  and  impartial  intelligence. 
Its  merit  is  enclosed  within  a  very  small  compass,  but  the 
force  of  it  is  almost  inappreciable.  It  abolishes  the  present 
slavery  of  political  opinion.  The  present  system  generates  pre- 
cisely such  a  slavery,  and  one  which  will  outlive  every  force 
marshaled  for  its  destruction  save  that  which  seeks  to  destroy 
the  motive  that  perpetuates  it.  Office  under  the  General 
Government  at  present  crystallizes  itself  into  the  mandate, 
"  Imbibe  the  political  creed  of  the  Administration,  and 
follow  wherever  it  leads."  This,  so  far  as  discretionary 
officials  are  concerned,  is  entirely  proper — yes,  absolutely 
necessary.  The  Government  directors  must,  of  necessity, 
harmonize  in  their  opinion  of  public  matters  in  general, 
however  much  they  may  vary  upon  minor  and  unimportant 
details.  With  its  ministerial  service,  however,  this  princi- 
ple, as  a  matter  of  policy,  has  nothing  to  do.  It  is  wholly 
irrelevant.  A  Democrat  would  poorly  represent  the  inter- 
ests of  the  country  as  a  minister  at  the  court  of  St.  James 
under  a  Republican  Administration,  it  is  true,  but  he  could 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  383 

post  the  Government's  ledgers  precisely  as  well  as  though 
of  an  opposite  political  belief. 

The  beneficial  result  which  would  flow  from  this  particu- 
lar feature  cannot  be  over-estimated.  The  thirst  for  office 
under  our  present  policy  bribes  the  political  opinion  and 
conduct  of  a  good  percentage  of  the  voters  of  the  entire 
country.  The  influence  in  this  direction  is  most  pernicious 
and  prejudicial,  and  the  precedents  established  are  still 
more  lamentable.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  repub- 
lican institutions,  it  is  indeed  the  very  soul  of  their  exist- 
ence, that  the  thought  of  their  people  shall  be  wholly  un- 
trammeled.  In  the  absence  of  such  perfect  freedom  of 
opinion  reforms  of  abuses  are  entirely  impossible  until 
they  sink,  indeed,  by  the  weight  of  their  own  iniquity. 
Reforms,  sorely-needed  ones,  in  American  politics,  to-day, 
are  wellnigh  hopeless  by  virtue,  of  precisely  this  state  of 
facts.  Independent  thought  and  action  is  asserted  in  only 
isolated  instances,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  loss  of  pres- 
ent or  prospective  Government  patronage  is  feared  as  the  con- 
sequence. But  let  the  opposing  political  parties  of  the 
country  understand  that  every  man,  whatever  his  political 
belief,  with  the  evidence  of  intelligence  already  stated,  can 
have  his  name  enrolled  for  a  drawing  which  will  without 
prejudice  place  him  upon  an  equal  footing  with  all  other 
aspirants  as  to  his  chances  of  securing  an  appointment  to 
office,  and  the  political  acts  and  utterances  of  the  entire 
masses  would  be  in  accordance  with  their  real  convictions, 
and  in  every  way  honest  and  sincere.  Abuses  would  then 
be  reformed  as  soon  as  discovered.  They  would  gain  ex- 
istence only  to  suffer  immediate  death.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise.  The  majority  of  mankind  are  defenders  of  prob-  , 
ity  and  good  morals,  followers  of  right  instead  of  wrong, 
and  with  the  assurance  that  the  maintenance  of  the  former 
could  in  no  way  subject  them  to  personal  hazard,  they 
would  ever  compel  its  ascendency. 


384         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

A  watchful  reader  may  say  in  this  connection,  Suppose  a 
drawing  as  above  proposed  produces  the  names  of  the  op- 
posing parties  in  about  an  equal  number,  would  not  the  ap- 
pointing agency  first  exhaust  the  list  of  names  of  those  who 
indorsed  the  politics  of  the  Administration?  We  think 
not.  The  ineligibility  of  these  appointors  for  a  second 
term  of  office  puts  them  under  bonds  for  good  behavior, 
and  they  would  have  nothing  to  gain,  but  much  to  lose,  by 
such  a  course.  If  the  law  allowed  political  opponents  to 
enroll  themselves  for  appointment,  it  would  plainly  con- 
template that  they  should  be  appointed,  and  a  refusal  so  to  ap- 
point would  be  a  breach  of  upright,  manly  action,  and  a 
constructive  defiance  of  law  which  could  not  result  to  the 
advantage  of  the  appointing  agency.  The  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  selects  the  standing  committees 
proportionately  from  all  the  political  elements  of  that  body. 
The  cases  are  precisely  parallel,  but  the  seeming  uncertain- 
ty, if  such  there  be,  could  be  removed  by  a  provision  di- 
recting that  the  appointing  agency  shall  make  its  selections 
proportionately  from  the  names  of  all  political  parties  pro- 
duced by  the  drawing. 

ii  and  12.  Exclude  all  Newspaper  Attaches  from  Po- 
sitions in  the  Service, — Establish  a  Government 
Journal  or  Periodical  for  the  Publication  of  Laws. 

These  two  propositions  may  be  appropriately  considered 
together.  They  have  precisely  the  same  end  in  view,  and 
remarks  which  are  relevant  to  the  one  are  equally  pertinent 
to  the  other.  Their  object-  is  to  prevent  the  subsidy  of  the 
press  by  the  party  in  power,  and  thus  destroy  its  efficiency 
1  and  usefulness.  Comment  in  this  connection  will  be  re- 
stricted within  very  narrow  limits.  The  opposite  course  is 
quite  unnecessary.  The  fact  is  as  notorious  as  it  is  lament- 
able that  the  press  of  the  country  is  almost  immeasurably 
influenced  in  its  policy  by  its  dealings  with  the  Administra- 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  385 

tion.  The  newspaper-men  of  the  country  to-day  who  have 
appointments  in  the  civil  service,  many  of  them  mere  sine- 
cures, are  numbered  by  thousands,  who  are  diligent  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  unhesitatingly  and  unreasoningly  defend- 
ing the  Administration  in  acts  which,  to  say  the  least,  are 
closely  akin  to  lawlessness.  They  are  absolutely  pledged, 
indeed,  to  stand  by  the  Administration,  right  or  wrong. 
Another  class  are  equally  obsequious  and  self-stultifying, 
with  the  hope  that  their  insincerity  may  be  rewarded  by 
official  preferment.  The  evil  of  this  condition  of  things 
is  threefold.  It  gives  the  Administration  the  use  of  an  un- 
warranted power,  corrupts  the  press  and  deceives  the  public. 
The  last-mentioned  point  is  the  greatest  evil  of  the  three. 
A  goodly  portion  of  the  voters  of  the  country  depend  upon 
"their  paper"  for  the  whole  of  their  information  upon 
public  affairs.  The  demands  of  labor  and  business  bar 
them  from  going  outside  of  these  disseminators  of  intelli- 
gence in  quest  of  facts.  Habit  is  powerful,  and  none  more 
so  than  the  one  which  people  have  of  accepting  the  state- 
ments of  their  journal  as  unqualifiedly  and  invariably  cor- 
rect. Newspaper  editorials,  indeed,  control  the  individual 
opinions  of  two-thirds  of  the  voters  of  the  entire  country.  In 
view  of  these  facts,  can  there  be  a  more  disastrous  state  of 
affairs  than  that  which  places  a  majority  of  the  journals  and 
periodicals  of  the  country  in  a  position  where,  in  many  in- 
stances, they  are  daily  scattering  falsehood  and  withholding 
truth?  This  particular  discussion  need  not  be  farther  ex- 
tended. The  Government  should  withdraw  the  publication 
of  its  laws  from  the  newspapers  of  the  country,  and  news- 
paper attache's  should  be  excluded  from  the  public  service. 

An  extended  discussion  of  the  constitutionality  of  this 
scheme  is  not  pertinent  to  the  purposes  of  this  chapter. 
Remarks  in  this  connection  will  be  confined  within  the 
limits  of  a  statement  showing  the  utmost  possible  change 

33  R 


386        .  THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

in  our  organic  law  which  the  adoption  of  this  system  would 
necessitate.  Such  a  change  would,  without  doubt,  embrace 
the  one-term  principle  for  the  President  of  the  United 
State,  the  prohibition  upon  members  of  the  service  from 
engaging  in  State  politics  further  than  exercising  the 
privilege  of  the  elective  franchise,  arid  possibly  the  other 
provisions  of  ineligibility  for  appointing  agencies  besides 
that  which  attaches  to  the  chief  executive.  Beyond  this  we 
are  of  the  opinion  that  no  constitutional  change  would  be 
required.  The  claim,  however,  might  be  advanced  that 
the  exclusion  of  newspaper  attaches  from  positions  in  the 
service  would  be  a  violation  of  our  organic  law.  We  think 
not.  At  all  events,  the  attainment  of  these  four  points 
would  be  the  extreme  outpost  of  a  constitutional  amendment 
requisite  to  perfect  the  scheme. 

An  outline  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  an  act  of 
Congress  necessary  to  accompany  the  constitutional  change 
above  defined  in  order  to  establish  the  proposed  system 
will  now  be  given.  The  same  should  provide  a  bar  upon 
Congressional  recommendation  to  office ;  the  ineligibility 
of  heads  of  Departments  and  other  appointing  agencies  for 
office  under  the  General  Government  during  the  next  suc- 
ceeding Administration,  unless  secured  by  constitutional 
amendment ;  the  election  of  local  officials  as  stated ;  the 
exclusion  of  members  of  the  service  from  other  offices 
under  a  State  or  the  United  States  during  the  rule  of  the 
Administration  by  which  they  were  appointed ;  a  rule 
against  political  assessments ;  a  tenure  of  office  for  mem- 
bers of  the  service,  conditioned  upon  good  behavior,  to 
last  until  removal  by  the  next  succeeding  Administration  ; 
the  payment  of  larger  salaries,  at  least  double  the  present 
allowance  ;  the  exclusion  of  newspaper  attaches  from  posi- 
tions in  the  service,  unless  secured  by  constitutional  amend- 
ment ;  the  establishment  of  a  Government  journal  or 
periodical  for  the  publication  of  laws ;  and,  lastly,  as  to 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  387 

the  feature  of  apportionment  and  its  collateral  require- 
ments. At  the  opening  of  the  session  of  Congress  next 
preceding  the  close  of  every  Administration  the  several 
Departments  of  the  General  Government  should  be  re- 
quired to  furnish  that  body  full  data  in  reference  to  the 
present  and  prospective  wants  of  the  service,  upon  the 
basis  of  which  an  apportionment  of  offices  should  be  made 
by  Congress  among  the  several  States  in  proportion  to  their 
representative  population  as  shown  by  the  last  census  of 
the  General  Government.  Upon  this  general  apportion- 
ment of  Congress  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States 
should  be  empowered  to  make,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
a  sub-apportionment  among  their  respective  cities,  towns 
and  villages  in  accordance  with  the  census  above  stated. 
At  any  time  after  the  adjournment  of  the  session  of  Con- 
gress above  named,  prior  to  the  inauguration  of  the  next 
succeeding  Administration,  a  section  of  the  law  should  pro- 
vide for  the  registration  of  the  names  of  all  applicants  with 
some  constituted  United  States  authority  like  the  district 
courts,  each  person  registering  to  put  the  character  of  his 
politics  upon  record,  that  the  appointments  might  be  made 
proportionately  from  all  parties,  and  no  registration  to  be 
allowed  except  with  the  evidence  of  intelligence  already 
stated.  Immediately  after  the  inauguration  of  the  new  Ad- 
ministration a  drawing  should  be  made,  under  the  direction 
of  the  same  United  States  authority,  of  a  number  of  regis- 
tered names  two  or  three  times  greater  than  that  of  the 
offices  to  be  filled,  and  from  the  list  so  resulting  the  ap- 
pointing agency  to  make  its  selection  j  in  case  the  regis- 
tration of  any  State  should  not  equal  its  allotment,  the 
appointing  agency  to  make  up  the  deficiency  by  propor- 
tionate selections  from  the  unexhausted  list  of  drawn  names 
of  the  other  States ;  and  in  case  the  service  should  require 
additional  force  between  the  Congressional  apportionments 
and  drawings  above  stated,  the  appointing  agency  to  supply 


388         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

such  demands  in  the  same  manner.  As  intimated  in  a 
prior  connection,  a  provision  of  the  law  might  direct  the 
appointors  to  make  their  selections  proportionately  from 
the  respective  political  parties  as  shown  by  the  registration. 
A  provision  would  also  be  extremely  pertinent  and  whole- 
some that  the  space  of  one  year  should  be  absorbed  in 
effecting  this  regular  change  of  officials,  an  equal  number 
of  appointments  to  be  made  each  month  of  the  year,  and 
removals  to  be  made  in  the  order  of  appointments.  This 
would  bar  the  possibility  of  doing  violence  to  the  interests 
of  the  service  and  the  country  through  the  presence  of  an 
entire  force  of  inexperienced  officials,  witheut  destroying  the 
tenure  of  office  in  respect  to  the  element  of  time. 

The  advantages  claimed  for  this  scheme  of  civil  service 
are  nearly  all  embraced  in  the  statement  that  it  would 
entirely  separate  it  from  politics  without  prejudice  to  any 
party  or  class,  remove  its  officials  wholly  beyond  the  reach 
of  influence  of  every  description,  equalize  opportunity,  and 
prevent  the  possibility  of  its  being  made  the  means  of  per- 
sonal or  party  aggrandizement.  Its  basis  is  merit.  It 
leaves  nothing  to  discretion,  and  consequently,  relatively 
speaking,  bars  every  door  for  the  perpetration  of  fraud  or 
the  use  of  bribes  It  abolishes  favoritism,  and  puts  all 
parties,  classes  and  individuals  upon  an  equal  footing.  //, 
in  short,  tends  to  inspire  a  motive  in  every  one  connected  -with 
the  service,  whether  appointor  or  appointee,  to  do  right  instead 
of  wrong.  In  addition  to  all  this,  it  is  perfectly  simple, 
practicable  and  capable  of  adoption. 

The  beneficial  results  of  such  a  system  would  find  ex- 
pression in  many  collateral  circumstances.  The  President 
of  the  United  States  would  be  dispossessed  of  every  vestige 
of  power  for  influencing  the  masses  and  controlling  the 
politics  of  the  country,  be  placed  under  the  heaviest  bonds 
to  govern  his  official  action  by  considerations  for  the 
material  prosperity  of  the  people  and  the  nation,  and  at 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  389 

the  same  time  be  able  to  command  the  respect  which  the 
dignity  of  his  office  imperatively  demands.  Instead  of  a 
dealer  in  political  haberdashery,  he  would  be  an  executive 
whose  only  aim  would  be  the  promotion  of  the  public 
weal.  The  same  with  the  members  of  the  national  legis- 
lature. They  would  be  relieved  from  the  importunity  of 
office-seekers,  elevated  to  a  position  of  perfect  independence, 
and  spurred  to  the  utmost  diligence  in  the  performance  of 
their  legitimate  duties,  for  by  this  means  alone,  and  not  by 
begging  favors  of  the  executive  and  heads  of  Departments, 
could  they  secure  a  continuance  of  their  official  status. 
The  heads  of  bureaus  and  other  appointing  agencies  would 
cease  to  barter  place  for  personal  political  support ;  the 
members  of  the  service,  instead  of  facile  sycophants,  would 
be  free-thinking,  intelligent  men ;  the  exercise  of  the  elec- 
tive franchise  would  be  in  accordance  with  actual  convic- 
tion, and  elections  consequently  no  longer  a  lie ;  primary 
meetings,  State  and  national  conventions  would  have  for 
their  object  the  advancement  of  local  and  general  welfare, 
instead  of  a  chance  at  the  "spoils;"  Federal  interference 
in  State  elections  would  cease ;  a  genuine  freedom  of  the 
press  be  secured  ;  the  national  Administrations  would  cease 
to  be  dealers  in  the  stock  of  newspaper  corporations,  as 
occasion  required,  for  the  purpose  of  directing  the  tone  of 
the  journals  of  the  country ;  and  private  character  would 
be  elevated,  emulated  and  duly  esteemed. 

III.    CRITICISM  OF  THE   REPORT  OF   THE  CIVIL  SERVICE 
COMMISSION. 

An  act  of  Congress  of  March  4,  1871,  authorized  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  appoint  a  commission 
for  the  purpose  of  devising  rules  for  the  reformation  of 
the  civil  service.  The  commission  was  appointed  at  an 
early  day  after  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  consisted  of 
George  William  Curtis,  Alexander  G.  Cattell,  Joseph 

S3* 


39°          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Medill,  Dawson  A.  Walker,  E.  B.  Elliott,  Joseph  H.  Black- 
fan  and  David  C.  Cox.  During  the  latter  portion  of  the 
same  year  (the  report  is  not  dated)  the  commission  reported 
to  the  President.  Upon  the  prominent  characteristics  of 
this  report  a  little  comment  is  now  proposed.  It  is  but 
simple  justice  to  state,  in  the  outset,  that  the  power  of  the 
commission  was  limited,  impliedly  at  least,  to  the  formation 
of  a  system  under  existing  laws ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  was 
expected  to  devise  a  scheme  which  would  not  require  any 
legislation  to  put  it  in  operation,  save  an  appropriation  for 
the  payment  of  incidental  expenses.  Its  office,  in  short, 
was  simply  to  mark  out  a  line  of  action  for  the  President 
under  an  existing  statute.  //  was  to  tell  the  chief  executive 
how  to  do  his  duty.  Criticism  upon  the  work  of  the  com- 
mission, consequently,  must  not  touch  upon  matters  out- 
side the  scope  of  its  office  as  above  defined,  must  not 
declaim  against  the  absence  of  reform  measures  attainable 
only  by  legislation  or  constitutional  changes,  but  be  con- 
fined to  a  search  for  defects  in  the  means  prescribed  by  the 
report. 

The  general  statement  is  now  advanced  that  the  scheme 
devised  by  the  commission  is,  to  a  great  extent,  both 
inadequate  and  impracticable.  Its  fundamental  element  is 
a  plan  of  competitive  examination  as  to  the  fitness  of  appli- 
cants for  positions  in  the  service,  both  the  character  and 
method  of  such  examination  to  be  directed  by  creatures  of  the 
President  alone.  To  more  fully  state  the  proposition  and 
defend  the  next  preceding  sentence  from  any  possible 
charge  of  unfairness,  let  the  report  of  the  commission  speak 
for  itself — namely :  "  We  propose,  therefore,  that  under 
the  section  of  the  act  already  quoted  he  (the  President) 
shall  employ  suitable  persons  to  act  as  an  advisory  board, 
which  shall  regulate  and  supervise  all  the  examinations 
mentioned ;  and  that  he  shall  further  designate  three  per- 
sons in  each  Department  as  a  board  of  examiners,  who 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  391 

shall  conduct  the  examination  personally  or  by  persons 
approved  by  the  advisory  board  and  under  its  immediate 
supervision."  A  brief  consideration  of  both  the  principle 
of  competitive  examination  in  the  abstract,  and  its  appli- 
cation to  a  system  of  civil  service,  will  portray  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  general  scheme.  Its  impracticability  will  also 
appear  in  the  discussion  of  its  application.  Of  these  in 
their  order. 

The  worth  of  oral  or  written  examinations  as  a  test  of 
intelligence  or  merit,  whether  conducted  upon  a  competi- 
tive basis  or  otherwise,  is  measured  entirely  by  the  extent 
of  their  operation.  If  an  attempt  is  made  to  push  them 
outside  of  restricted  limits,  they  speedily  degenerate  into 
nothing  less  than  an  ostentatious  farce.  It  cannot  be  other- 
wise. As  applied  to  the  purposes  of  admission  to  institu- 
tions of  learning,  where  the  number  of  applicants  is  com- 
paratively small,  or  to  those  of  graduation,  where  the  list 
of  aspirants  is  similarly  curtailed,  the  principle  is,  for  the 
most  part,  both  adequate  and  practicable.  It  is  so  simply 
because  it  can  be  applied  with  approximate  completeness. 
But  when  it  is  invoked,  so  to  speak,  to  open  the  door  to 
any  public  or  quasi  public  position  of  whatever  sort,  the  ap- 
plicants are  generally  so  numerous  that  a  thorough,  and 
consequently  a  just,  examination  is  wholly  impossible. 
The  result  is,  that  the  capacity  of  those  submitted  to  ex- 
amination is  guessed  at,  but  never  ascertained.  These  are 
not  mere  naked  assertions.  Their  truth  is  attested  by  ex- 
perience in  very  many  directions.  As  a  single  illustration, 
let  the  examination  of  applicants  for  permission  to  practice 
in  the  courts  of  the  several  States  be  briefly  alluded  to. 
These  examinations,  numerically  speaking,  are  mostly  con- 
fined to  cities,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  they  are 
a  libel  upon  truth,  a  disgrace  to  American  education,  and 
an  insult  both  to  the  profession  and  the  general  intelligence 
of  community.  In  the  city  of  New  York  there  are  at  least 


392          THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

two  hundred  applicants  annually  admitted  to  the  Bar  of  the 
State  after  an  examination  by  the  Supreme  Court,  one-half 
of  whom  are  wholly  incapable,  and  of  the  balance  not  more 
than  one-third  are  ordinarily  prepared  for  the  discharge 
of  the  duties  incumbent  upon  the  position.  The  same  is 
equally  true,  relatively  speaking,  of  legal  examinations  in 
the  provincial  cities  throughout  the  entire  country.  The 
foregoing  finds  ample  warrant  in  the  fact  that  out  of  the 
aggregate  number  of  admissions  to  the  Bar  in  the  United 
States,  only  forty  per  cent,  are  able  to  sustain  themselves  in 
the  profession,  and  that  three-fourths  of  the  law-business  of 
the  country  is  prosecuted  by  one-fourth  of  the  lawyers  in 
active  practice.  Illustrations  need  not  be  multiplied. 

Turn  for  a  moment  from  this  more  general  view  of  the 
principle  of  examination  as  a  test  of  intelligence  to  a  rela- 
tive discussion  of  the  same  as  applied  to  our  civil  service. 
The  number  of  offices  which  could  be  secured  only  by 
passing  a  prescribed  examination  in  accordance  with  the 
report  of  the  commission  is  at  least  fifteen  thousand.  There 
are  seven  great  Departments  of  the  General  Government, 
and  from  each  of  these  three  men  are  to  be  selected  to  con- 
duct the  examination,  making  twenty-one  in  all.  The 
scheme  contemplates,  moreover,  that  the  examination  shall 
at  least  find  three  capable  applicants  for  every  office,  from 
which  list  the  appointments  are  ultimately  to  be  made, 
which  would  be  forty-five  thousand.  The  inquiry  is  per- 
tinent, How  many  applicants  would  be  submitted  to  an  ex- 
amination for  the  purpose  of  making  up  this  list?  Of 
course  all  that  might  present  themselves,  as  directed  by  one 
of  the  rules  of  the  scheme,  and  it  is  perfectly  safe  to  say 
that  they  would  number  two  hundred  thousand.  The  pre- 
mise is  also  a  fair  one  that  by  reason  of  the  usual  mutations 
of  time  the  personnel  of  the  service  would  entirely  change 
with  the  lapse  of  every  decade,  so  that  the  examiners  would 
annually  be  obliged  to  pass,  on  an  average,  upon  the  ca- 


CIVIL  SERVICE.  393 

pacity  of  twenty  thousand  applicants.  Now,  is  it  in  the 
possibility  of  things  to  declare  the  supposition  in  any  way 
tenable  that  twenty-one  men  wmild  or  could,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  make  an  examination  of  the  capacity  of  twenty 
thousand  individuals  which  would  be  anything  more  than  a 
stupendous  fraud?  The  term  is  not  used  as  an  imputation 
upon  personal  character,  but  as  the  only  one  which  rightly 
defines  the  natural  result  of  such  an  impossible  task. 

These  are  two  features  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  scheme 
of  the  commission.  They  are  inherent  in  the  plan  itself. 
The  third,  last  and  worst  of  all  is  extraneous — not  intrinsic — 
to  the  principle  of  competitive  examination.  It  appears  in 
the  machinery  by  which  the  examination  is  to  be  conducted, 
the  motive-power  which  is  to  direct  and  manage  the  entire 
institution,  and  the  evil  results  which  will  flow  therefrom. 
Let  recourse  again  be  had  to  the  words  of  the  commission 
before  cited.  The  President  is  to  appoint  both  the  advisory 
board  and  the  examiners.  The  advisory  board  possesses  the 
exclusive  right  to  define  the  character  of  the  examination, 
and  the  examiners  may  conduct  it  either  directly  or  indirectly. 
These  provisions  alone  condemn  the  entire  scheme.  They 
do  not  remove — nay  more,  they  do  not  even  palliate — the 
evils  of  the  present  system.  They  simply  change  the  chan- 
nel through  which  present  abuses  make  their  way.  They 
merely  add  two  more  links  to  the  chain  which  encircles  the 
defects  of  the  present  institution.  The  truth  of  this  state- 
ment is  seemingly  self-apparent,  but  a  brief  examination 
may  render  it  a  little  more  plain. 

The  report  of  the  commission  lays  great  stress  .upon  the 
point  that  the  scheme  defeats  the  possibility — or  probability, 
at  least — of  " political  pressure ."  That  the  scheme  leaves 
the  service  entirely  unprotected  from  "political  pressure" 
is  precisely  what  the  present  portion  of  this  discussion  en- 
deavors to  maintain.  The  scheme  leaves  the  service,  in 
fact,  as  wholly  subject  to  influence — as  much  an  appendage 

R2 


394          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

and  instrument  of  party  politics — as  where  it  finds  it.  It 
only  establishes  a  little  more  circumlocution.  It  leaves 
everything  to  discretion,  and  to  the  discretion  of  whom  ? 
The  President  of  the  United  States.  The  entire  machinery 
of  the  system,  in  every  part  and  parcel,  is  the  direct  crea- 
ture of  the  chief  executive,  and  his  simple  mandate,  so  far 
as  the  civil  service  is  concerned,  may  transform  ignorance 
to  intelligence  and  capacity  to  inefficiency.  Is  the  ques- 
tion asked,  Does  not  the  force  of  the  foregoing  rest  entirely 
upon  the  anticipation  of  fraud  and  corruption  ?  Precisely. 
Were  it  not  for  fraud  and  corruption  we  would  need  no 
reform.  It  is  just  these  elements  which  the  commission 
was  formed  to  exterminate,  and  it  is  just  these  elements 
which  have  prostituted  the  entire  service  for  the  last  forty 
years,  and  never  so  shamefully  as  at  present.  It  is  these 
identical  forces,  moreover,  which  will  ever  make  the  ser- 
vice a  by-word  and  a  reproach,  a  huge  auction-block  for 
the  sale  of  office  for  a  consideration  of  political  support, 
until  the  motive  is  destroyed  which  suggests  this  institution. 
And  this  result  is  not  even  approximated  by  the  scheme. 
It  is  perfect  folly  to  suppose  that  the  executive  and  legisla- 
tive departments  and  the  leading  politicians  of  the  party  in 
power  are  going  to  abandon  the  "spoil "-system  of  the  last 
half  century,  simply  because  the  red  tape  of  an  advisory 
board  and  a  bureau  of  examiners — in  all  not  thirty  per- 
sons— are  to  be  added  to  the  details  of  the  present  plan. 
The  system  would  be  manipulated  in  the  interest  of  the 
party  in  power  in  less  than  six  months  after  its  inaugura- 
tion. The  President  would  want  a  re-election  and  would 
still  court  the  favor  of  Congress.  Members  of  this  body 
would  also  want  a  continuance  of  official  status,  and  they 
would  be  called  upon  by  their  constituents  to  prove  their 
capacity  before  the  examining  board,  or  else  give  way  to  a 
man  who  would.  The  vast  details  of  party  politics,  from 
the  duties  and  aspirations  of  the  chief  executive  to  the  or- 


CIVIL   SERVICE.  395 

ganization  of  a  village  caucus,  would  be  as  closely  wedded 
as  now,  and  the  new  system  of  civil  service  would  be  the 
most  potent  agency  for  the  execution  of  their  schemes. 
The  President  would  appoint  an  advisory  board  and  a  bu- 
reau of  examiners  who  would  do  his  bidding ;  Congressmen 
would  tell  these  officials  who  were  capable  and  who  were 
not;  and  upon  this  foundation  alone  would  this  system  of 
competitive  examination  rest.  It  would,  in  short,  be  a  sys- 
tem with  the  old  slogan,  "To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils 
of  the  enemy."  The  foregoing  comment  must  not  be  taken 
as  an  imputation  upon  individuals  in  any  single  particular. 
The  parties  engaged  in  the  interest  of  the  present  system 
are  all  honorable  men,  with  names  above  reproach  and 
reputation  unscathed.  Such  men,  indeed,  are  always  em- 
ployed to  give  character  to  any  new  institution  of  whatever 
sort,  but  what  is  the  warrant  of  their  ascendency  ?  None. 
And  it  is  for  the  distant  future,  not  alone  the  immediate 
present,  which  a  genuine  civil  service  reform  must  necessa- 
rily provide. 

Thus  far,  the  inadequacy  of  the  system  has  alone  been 
considered.  In  respect  to  its  impracticability  not  a  word 
need  be  offered.  It  fully  appeared  when  the  application  of 
the  principle  of  competitive  examination  to  a  scheme  of 
civil  service  was  under  discussion,  in  the  impossibility  of  a 
score  of  officials  to  correctly  pass,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, upon  the  capacity  of  twenty  thousand  individuals 
annually.  The  scheme  is  as  unwieldy  as  it  is  inefficient. 

There  are  several  minor  defects  which  might  properly 
furnish  a  theme  for  discussion  were  they  not  rendered, 
relatively  sneaking,  entirely  insignificant  by  the  gravity 
of  the  ones  already  alluded  to.  With  this  brief  reference, 
therefore,  they  will  be  summarily  dismissed,  together 
with  the  report  of  the  commission  in  general,  with  the 
additional  remark  that  -the  deliberations  of  this  body  re- 
sulted in  all  that  could  be  reasonably  anticipated,  since  it 


396          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

was  not  called  upon  to  suggest  changes  in  our  organic 
or  statute  law. 

It  is  perhaps  proper  to  add  in  this  connection  that  the 
system  suggested  by  the  report  of  the  commission  has 
proved  a  failure  in  the  outset,  not  so  much  by  reason  of 
the  causes  hereinbefore  mentioned  as  from  the  insincerity 
of  the  executive  department  in  its  enforcement.  It  has 
been  ostensibly  put  in  operation  when  convenient,  and  dis- 
regarded when  its  institution  would  prejudice  the  interests 
of  the  party  now  in  power.  The  course  of  the  executive 
in  this  respect,  however,  so  far  as  the  proposed  scheme  of 
the  commission  is  concerned,  has  merely  operated  as  a  dis- 
count of  time.  The  defects  of  the  system  were  positively 
certain  to  secure  it  an  ultimate  demise.  The  President  has 
merely  provided  it  with  a  premature  death  and  anticipated 
the  day  of  its  interment;  for  which,  so  far  as  the  plan 
of  the  commission  is  at  issue,  let  him  have  thanks.  Past 
abuses  were  sure  of  gathering  strength  instead  of  suffering 
decay  under  its  operation,  and  the  President's  obligations 
of  courtesy  to  the  commissioners  is  a  matter  of  their  exclu- 
sive concern. 


PART  III. 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  REVENUE  LEGISLATION. 


PRELIMINARY. 

THE  subject-matter  of  the  present  Part  of  this  treatise 
naturally  resolves  itself  into  a  somewhat  restricted 
compass.  Particularly  as  applied  to  the  purposes  of  the 
entire  work,  the  separate  topics  which  it  presents  for  con- 
sideration are  few  in  number.  The  issues  of  American  pol- 
itics in  this  direction  are  indeed  all  embraced  within  the 
limits  of  the  discussion  growing  out  of  the  subjects  of  Pro- 
tection and  Free  Trade,  Tariffs  and  Taxation.  Of  these, 
both  in  the  abstract  and  also  relatively,  as  applied  to  the 
present  exigencies  of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  order 
above  named. 

34  397 


39^         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE. 

The  Inherent  Difficulties  of  the  Question — Like  the  Entire  Theme  of 
Political  Economy,  it  is  not  Responsive  to  the  Rules  of  Pure  Science 
— The  Statement  Corroborated  by  Eminent  Authority — The  Method 
of  the  Opposing  Forces — Protection  and  Free  Trade  Defined — The 
Conditions  upon  which  the  Opposing  Doctrines  Rest — The  Limits  of 
the  Respective  Systems — Free  Trade  is  Passive,  Protection  Active — 
Protection  Merely  Secures  the  Possibilities  of  Capital  and  Industry 
— Cheapness  and  the  Law  of  Price  considered — The  Effect  of  Pro- 
tection thereon — Protection  Seeks  its  Ends  by  Means  of  Tariffs  upon 
Imports — Protective  Tariffs  do  not  Enhance  the  Price  of  Imports  to 
the  Extent  of  the  Burden  Laid  upon  the  Same — The  Law  of  Com- 
petition makes  such  Enhancement  Impossible — The  Principle  Illus- 
trated— Protection  does  not  Divert  the  Employment  of  Capital  and 
Industry  to  their  Prejudice — The  Point  considered  at  Length — The 
Same  of  National  Prosperity — Protection  does  not  Foster  Monopolies, 
either  Individual  or  Local — Protection  does  not  Encourage  Ignor- 
ance— Protection  is  not  Taxation — Protection  does  not  Bar  Exporta- 
tion— The  Force  of  Natural  Law  in  this  Connection — National  Pros- 
perity based  upon  Producing  Power — Protection  should  be  Stable — 
John  Stuart  Mill  in  Support  of  the  System — The  Moral  Aspect  of  the 
Question — Rude  and  Skilled  Labor — Agriculture  and  Manufactures 
— Cities  and  Villages — It  is  a  Question  of  Civilization  or  Barbarism, 
Progress  or  Decay — The  Proper  Policy  for  the  United  States — The 
Absolute  and  Relative  Conditions  of  the  Country  stated — In  View 
thereof  Free  Trade  Points  to  the  almost  Universal  Pursuit  of  Agri- 
culture— Free  Trade,  by  Reducing  Cost  of  Raw  Material,  would  not 
put  our  Industries  on  an  Equal  Footing  with  European  Ones — The 
Case  of  England  Cited — Its  Position  Dissimilar  to  that  of  the  United 
States — No  Analogy  between  them — The  Reason  England  advo- 
cates Free  Trade — The  Question  of  the  Laboring  Classes  in  this 
Connection — England  Owes  her  present  Commercial  Status  to  Pro- 
3»8 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  399 

tection — Skilled  Labor  never  a  Drug — Protection  at  Present  the  Pro- 
per Policy  of  the  American  Republic. 

r  I  "HE  exposition  of  the  subject  above  named  is  perhaps 
J.  the  most  difficult  task  assumed  within  the  limits  of 
this  treatise.  The  writer  who  essays  its  elucidation,  how- 
ever facile  his  pen,  extended  his  information  or  mature  his 
judgment,  finds  no  little  difficulty  in  defining  the  bound- 
aries of  his  proposed  discussion.  The  topic  is  intricate  in 
character,  comprehensive  in  operation,  voluminous  in  de- 
tail, prolific  in  results,  and  utterly  unsusceptible  of  a  reduc- 
tion to  such  genera/  principles  as  will  admit  of  a  uniform 
application.  Do  the  words  above  italicized  deny  the  claim 
of  this  theme  to  be  ranked  among  scientific  subjects?  In 
one  sense,  no ;  in  another,  yes.  The  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  protection  and  free  trade — the  reason  of  their  adop- 
tion— are  everywhere  identical,  but,  this  point  passed,  the 
events  consequent  upon  their  inauguration  under  different 
conditions  and  circumstances  are  so  perfectly  inconsistent 
that  it  is  entirely  impossible  to  predicate,  upon  either  of 
these  doctrines,  a  law  of  cause  and  effect  which  shall  be 
changeless  and  universal.  The  same  may  be  truthfully  said 
of  the  entire  science  of  political  economy.  The  reason  of 
the  institution  of  its  laws  is  always  the  same,  but  the  results 
of  their  application  vary  with  every' occasion  which  invokes 
their  aid.  The  reason  of  this  is  not  occult,  but  on  the  con- 
trary entirely  manifest.  Pure,  legitimate  science,  in  its 
restricted  sense,  not  only  deals  with  entities  which  are 
always  precisely  similar  in  character — in  their  component 
parts — but  which  are  also  always  subject  to  precisely  similar 
extraneous  forces.  In  political  economy  this  duplex  princi- 
ple has  only  partial  sway.  The  elements  grasped  by  its  laws, 
as  in  the  case  of  pure  science,  are  ever  identical,  but  the 
collateral  agencies  with  which  they  are  brought  in  contact  are 
dissimilar  and  indeterminable. 

These  are  rigorous  statements,  but  they  point,  in  substance, 


400         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

for  corroboration  to  authorities  which  few  will  presume  to 
question.  Said  Samuel  Laing :  "Political  economy  is  not 
a  universal  science,  of  which  the  principles  are  applicable 
to  all  men  under  all  circumstances,  and  equally  good  and 
true  for  all  nations."  But  more  emphatic  still  are  the 
words  of  America's  greatest  statesman,  Daniel  Webster. 
Said  Mr.  Webster:  "Though  I  like  the  investigation  of 
particular  questions,  I  give  up  what  is  called  the  science  of 
political  economy.  There  is  no  such  science.  There  are 
no  rules  on  these  subjects  so  fixed  and  invariable  as  that 
their  aggregate  constitutes  a  science." 

Within  the  scope  of  these  remarks  is  found  the  cause  of 
the  widely-varying  opinions  upon  the  doctrines  of  protec- 
tion and  free  trade.  The  supporters  of  the  latter  invariably 
argue  upon  the  premise  of  a  changeless  law  of  cause  and 
effect.  They  lay  down  a  proposition,  and  declare  that  the 
results  of  its  operation  will  be  the  same  under  all  conditions 
and  circumstances.  They  proceed,  in  short,  by  deduction, 
and  their  conclusions  are  purely  theoretical.  The  advo- 
cates of  protection,  however  (let  not  the  reader  be  here 
misled — Protection  has  not  yet  been  defined),  reason  from 
exactly  the  opposite  basis.  They  start  with  particular  facts 
and  circumstances — with  special  conditions — and  there- 
from mould  their  law:  Their  method,  in  fact,  is  that  of 
induction,  and  their  conclusions  are  the  results  of  expe- 
rience. 

In  view  of  these  conflicting  lines  of  thought  it  ceases, 
perhaps,  to  be  a  subject  of  surprise  that  the  discussions  of 
the  opposing  parties  often  degenerate  into  acrimonious 
charges  of  "absurdity,"  instead  of  intelligently  resorting 
to  logic  and  the  teachings  of  reason  for  the  purpose  of 
rendering  their  respective  positions  untenable.  The  state- 
ment is  by  no  means  an  exaggeration,  that  not  only  have 
the  discussions  of  protection  and  free  trade  been  exceed- 
ingly prolix  with  matter  entirely  irrelevant,  but  also  that 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  40 1 

they  have  been  characterized  by  the  fiercest  partisanship, 
bigotry  and  unreasonableness. 

Without  a  commission  at  present  to  either  of  these  doc- 
trines, the  limits  of  both  this  and  the  next  succeeding  chap- 
ter will  first  be  stated,  the  order  of  argument  for  the  present 
one  then  given,  and  the  same  pursued  with  the  utmost  pos- 
sible conciseness  and  logical  precision.  The  scope  of  both 
chapters  will  be  here  defined,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that,  so 
far  as  the  purposes  of  this  treatise  are  concerned,  they  are 
component  parts  of  the  same  general  discussion.  The 
present  chapter  will  consist  of  an  exposition  of  general 
principles,  and  the  following  one  upon  Tariffs,  after  a  brief 
consideration  of  that  topic  in  the  abstract,  will  be  devoted 
to  a  view  of  their  application.  In  other  words,  this  imme- 
diate discussion  will  deal  with  the  fundamental  truths 
alleged  as  the  embodiment  of  the  doctrines  of  protection 
and  free  trade,  while  that  upon  Tariffs,  the  abstract  question 
having  been  first  disposed  of,  will  have  to  do  with  their  de- 
tailed employment  in  the  form  of  law. 

The  discussion  now  in  order  will  be  conducted  as  fol- 
lows— namely : 

I.   Protection  and  Free  Trade  Defined  ; 
II.  The    Conditions  upon  which  the  Opposing  Doc- 
trines Rest ; 

III.  The  Limits  of  the  Respective  Systems  ; 

IV.  The  Collateral  Tendencies  of  the  Two  Institutions ; 
V.  The  Proper  Policy  for  the  United  States. 

I.  PROTECTION  AND  FREE  TRADE  DEFINED. 
The  meaning  of  free  trade  is  in  no  respect  ambiguous. 
The  doctrine  is  susceptible,  in  a  very  few  words,  of  a  defi- 
nition which  is  both  exact  and  comprehensive.  Its  name, 
in  fact,  clearly  indicates  its  character.  It  means  an  absolute, 
unqualified  right  in  every  individual  to  buy  and  sell  any 
and  every  commodity  in  any  and  every  market  of  the 

34  • 


402         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

world,  without  any  legal  restriction  whatever.  In  other 
words,  it  demands  that  traffic  shall  never  be  made  the 
subject  of  legislation.  It  is  a  plea,  pure  and  simple,  for  the 
universal  enforcement  of  the  maxim  Laissez  faire.  It  is 
emphatically  a  "let-alone"  system.  This,  and  only  this, 
is  free  trade.  Institutions  such  as  "tariffs  for  revenue" 
are,  in  theory  and  principle,  as  dissimilar  to  it  as  the  rival 
doctrine  of  protection.  They  simply  approximate  to,  but 
do  not  represent,  the  system.  Any  condition  of  things,  in 
short,  which  imposes  the  slightest  restriction  upon  the 
absolute  right  of  traffic  stated  in  the  outset  ends  the  exist- 
ence of  free  trade.  A  perfect  appreciation  of  the  real 
nature  of  this  doctrine,  as  above  defined,  will  greatly  assist 
the  further  investigation  of  the  present  subject. 

The  theory  of  protection,  substantially  speaking,  is  equally 
well  defined  by  the  name  which  designates  it.  The  term 
"protection,"  however,  differs  from  that  of  "free  trade" 
in  that  it  is  complex,  while  the  latter  is  simple.  The  first 
is  the  nominal  representative  of  a  combination  of  ideas, 
while  the  latter  is  the  exponent  of  only  one.  Protection, 
therefore,  will  require  a  more  extended  exposition. 

Protection  is  not  merely  the  reverse  of  free  trade.  The 
latter,  in  its  restricted,  legitimate  signification,  attaches 
solely  to  the  purchase  and  sale  of  commodities.  The  first, 
single  and  ultimate  end  which  it  seeks  to  accomplish  is 
absolute  freedom  in  respect  to  such  purchase  and  sale. 
The  former  not  only  places  an  inhibition  upon  this  absolute 
freedom  of  traffic,  but  in  so  doing  lays  its  hand  upon  capi- 
tal and  industry.  It  is  only  to  grasp  these  two  latter  ele- 
ments, indeed,  that  it  reverses  the  wheels  of  the  free  trade 
system — that  it  restricts  the  freedom  of  traffic.  A  hold 
upon  these  two  elements  is  its  ultimate  purpose,  and  for  the 
attainment  of  this  end  it  pursues  a  course,  it  is  true,  exactly 
opposite  to  that  of  its  antagonist.  The  distinction  in  re- 
spect to  these  characteristics  of  the  opposing  systems  is  al] 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  403 

important,  and  may  be  reduced  to  the  following  proposi- 
tion :  The  end  of  free  trade  is  freedom  of  traffic,  while 
that  of  protection  is  the  guardianship  of  capital  and  industry 
by  means  of  restricting  such  freedom. 

The  above  comparison  prepares  the  way  for  a  general 
definition  of  protection,  and  the  position  is  here  assumed 
that  protection  is  the  security  of  the  possibilities  of  capital  and 
industry. 

II.  THE   CONDITIONS   UPON  WHICH  THE   OPPOSING   DOC- 
TRINES REST. 

The  present  sub-subject  will  be  disposed  of  nearly  as 
briefly  as  the  next  preceding  one.  It  is  only  intended,  in 
this  connection,  to  point  out  the  peculiar  status  of  things 
which  can  alone  decide  between  the  different  systems  as  the 
proper  policy  for  a  nation  to  pursue.  The  determination 
of  this  question  seems  in  no  way  difficult.  Upon  the 
premise  that  the  definitions  of  the  opposing  doctrines  above 
given  are  correct,  a  key  is  thereby  furnished  for  the  speedy 
solution  of  this  inquiry. 

Referring  to  the  meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  free  trade  as 
stated  in  the  outset  (purely  unrestricted  traffic),  the  propo- 
sition is  ventured  that  the  system  constitutes  a  perfectly 
sound  and  defensible  national  policy  where  the  relative 
position  of  the  country  which  adopts  it  is,  in  all  respects, 
equal  to  that  of  those  with  which  it  may  hold  commercial 
intercourse.  Superior  it  may  be,  equal  it  must  be,  but  infe- 
rior never.  It  cannot  be  otherwise.  The  simple  idea  of 
free  trade  is  indicative  of  strength.  It  is  suggestive  of  fear- 
lessness— of  independence  of  position — by  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  natural  or  artificial  causes  have  given  a  status  of  either 
superiority  or  equality.  Free  trade  is  in  every  respect 
amenable  to  natural  law.  This  law,  in  common  with  all 
superhuman  forces,  never  works  its  own  stultification.  Both 
the  rules  of  its  application  and  the  results  thereof,  abstractly 


404  THE  ISSUES   OF  A  At  ERIC  AN  POLITICS. 

speaking,  are  ever  the  same ;  and  as  free  trade  is  a  pure, 
simple,  unqualified  trial  of  strength  in  one  direction,  the 
same  principle  which  attaches  to  the  contests  of  power  in 
general  is  impossible  of  avoidance  in  this  single  particular : 
the  stronger  party  will  triumph,  and  the  weaker  will  bite 
the  dust. 

Is  the  premise  denied  ?  Is  not  free  trade  a  mere  battle 
of  abstract  power  ?  The  affirmation  of  the  last  interroga- 
tory seems  entirely  tenable.  The  system  of  free  trade 
attaches  to  traffic — the  latter  deals  with  commodities ;  and 
the  ability  of  an  individual  or  a  nation  to  successfully  com- 
pete in  their  exchange  depends  entirely  upon  the  advantages 
possessed  for  their  production.  This  ability  to  produce — 
this  creative  power — governs  the  entire  question,  and  the 
rival  possessing  this  power  to  the  greatest  extent — in  the  most 
perfect  degree — will  occupy  the  foremost  position  among 
the  competitors  of  the  trafficking  world,  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  this  superior  producing  force  stamps  its  products 
with  a  characteristic  which  attracts  universal  patronage — 
cheapness.  The  elements  which  make  up  the  position  of 
equality  necessary  to  permit  a  nation  to  safely  incorporate 
the  doctrine  of  free  trade  into  its  economic  law  are  numer- 
ous, and,  in  the  abstract,  unsusceptible  of  exact  definition. 
In  the  light  of  comparison  they  are,  in  no  respect,  un- 
clouded. They  consist  of  age,  extent  of  territory,  cost  of 
carriage,  perfection  and  expense  of  labor,  value  of  capital, 
the  ease  with  which  indigenous  climatic  or  local  products 
are  secured,  and  other  considerations  dependent  upon 
peculiar  circumstances  and  conditions.  They  will  appear 
more  in  detail  in  a  subsequent  portion  of  this  discussion. 

The  gist  of  the  foregoing  remarks  may  be  reduced  to  the 
simple  proposition  that  the  only  minimum  condition  upon 
which  the  system  of  free  trade  is  defensible  is  that  of  abso- 
lute equality,  that  the  institution  of  the  system  is  a  mere 
trial  of  strength,  and  that,  as  a  natural  consequence,  the 


PROTECTION  AND   FREE    TRADE.  405 

competitor  possessed  of  the  greatest  creative  power  will 
worst  all  other  rivals  in  the  strife. 

If  an  advocate  of  the  system  demands,  in  this  connec- 
tion, the  allowance  of  the  claim  that  when  the  position  of 
equality  above  stated  has  been  reached  by  a  state  or  nation, 
free  trade  is  the  only  proper,  legitimate  law  of  traffic,  his 
prayer,  upon  general  principles,  is  granted.  A  detailed 
discussion  of  the  question,  with  an  examination  of  the  ex- 
ceptions to  the  rule,  is  not  particularly  pertinent  to  the  pur- 
poses of  this  investigation. 

The  conditions  of  protection,  in  a  general  sense,  are,  for 
the  most  part,  the  reverse  of  those  of  free  trade,  but  the 
line  of  reasoning  which  makes  these  conditions  apparent  is 
inverse  to  that  which  demonstrates  the  basis  of  the  oppo- 
sing doctrine.  Free  trade  is  defensible  because  the  nation 
which  adopts  the  policy  is  able  to  stamp  its  own  products 
with  the  impress  of  cheapness,  and  the  plea  of  defence  be- 
gins with  the  assertion  of  such  cheapness.  Protection,  on 
the  other  hand,  commands  respect  by  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  such  cheapness  of  home  products  does  not  exist,  but 
the  argument  which  presents  the  system  to  public  favor 
starts  with  the  declaration  of  inadequate  production,  and 
not  with  the  allegation  of  the  high  price  of  home  com- 
modities. This  is  no  libel  upon  logic.  The  advocates  of 
the  opposing  theories  by  these  arguments  state  the  cause 
which  induces  their  demand.  The  claimants  of  the  one 
plead  cheapness — the  soul-essence  of  the  system — as  the 
foundation  of  their  claim  for  free  traffic  ;  while  the  support- 
ers of  the  other  urge  inability  to  assure  such  cheapness — 
that  is,  inadequate  production. 

The  adoption  of  protection  denotes  relative  infancy  and 
weakness.  It  is  a  confession  of  inequality,  of  inferior 
status.  It  is  a  frank  acknowledgment  of  amenability  to 
natural  law  by  an  admission  of  inability  to  cope  with  the 
strength  which  a  free-trading  nation  opposes  to  its  compel- 


406         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

itors.  It  is  a  sound  and  defensible  policy  for  a  nation  to 
pursue  when  its  facilities  for  the  production  of  commodi- 
ties are  unequal  to  those  of  other  countries  with  whom  it 
may  hold  commercial  intercourse.  The  conditions  upon 
which  the  system  rests,  in  short,  are  the  necessities  of  a 
people  to  protect  the  weakness  and  imperfections  of  their 
producing,  creative  power  against  the  superior  force  and 
strength  of  their  rivals.  The  badges  of  inequality  which 
render  the  institution  of  the  system  a  necessity  fully  ap- 
peared in  the  comparison  made  between  free  trade  and 
protective  nations  in  a  prior  portion  of  the  examination  of 
this  sub-subject. 

Further  space  will  not  be  devoted  to  this  immediate  topic 
of  consideration.  Like  its  predecessor,  it  has  been  dis- 
posed of  with  intentional  brevity.  The  object  of  the  re- 
spective inquiries  was  to  ascertain  what  free  trade  and  pro- 
tection are,  what  they  mean,  and  to  define  the  basis  of  the 
opposing  systems.  Have  the  definitions  and  conditions  of 
these  two  laws  of  economics  been  too  summarily  dismissed  ? 
Possibly.  The  subject  of  this  chapter,  however,  is  a  much- 
abused  one,  and  its  examination  has  many  times  been 
characterized  by  the  interpolation  of  irrelevant  inquiry. 
Its  intricacy  cannot  be  thus  removed.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  thereby  increased.  The  less  the  record  is  cumbered 
with  redundant  matter,  the  more  satisfactory  will  be  the 
result  of  the  investigation.  What  protection  and  free  trade 
are  not,  what  are  the  results  of  their  operation,  or  what  are 
the  objections  raised  against  the  respective  systems,  was  not 
the  object  of  these  two  disquisitions.  Those  considerations 
are  of  paramount  import,  but  thus  far  they  are  irrelevant, 
and  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  their  anticipation.  They 
will  by  no  means  be  omitted,  but  the  brief  analytical  state- 
ment above  made  of  what  are  thought  to  be  unimpeachable 
truths  was  looked  upon  as  the  most  efficient  pilot  to  the 
open  sea  of  discussion  upon  which  the  contending  theories 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  407 

have  so  long  and  so  hotly  waged  their  unremitting  war. 
Upon  this  stormy  sea  we  are  now  afloat,  and,  with  our 
knowledge  of  the  character  and  requirements  of  the  sail 
which  traverse  its  waters,  an  attempt  will  be  made  to 
fathom  the  under-current  of  truth  that  sleeps  beneath  the 
tempest  of  the  surface  wave. 

III.  THE  LIMITS  OF  THE  RESPECTIVE  SYSTEMS. 

In  respect  to  this  branch  of  the  main  discussion,  the 
treatment  thereof  (if  the  paradox  may  be  allowed)  will  be 
single  and  yet  duplex.  The  line  of  argument  to  be  pursued, 
moreover,  is  natural  and  not  artificial.  Free  trade,  so  to 
speak,  is  a  passive  policy.  It  exists,  as  it  were,  by  virtue 
of  the  absence  of  legislation,  and  its  derelictions,  if  any, 
are  those  of  omission.  Protection,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
an  active  institution,  and  owes  its  life  to  the  generating 
power  of  statute  law.  Its  excesses,  if  any,  are  those  of 
commission.  This  investigation,  therefore,  will  seek,  for 
the  most  part,  to  trace  the  boundary-lines  beyond  which 
the  active,  aggressive  policy  of  protection  should  never  pass. 
By  this  method  the  limits  of  protection  will  not  only  be  as- 
certained, but  also  those  of  free  trade,  for  outside  of  the 
scope  of  protection  the  rival  system  has  undoubted,  exclu- 
sive right.  In  other  words,  free  trade,  relatively  speaking, 
is  the  law  of  nature.  How  far,  by  reason  of  uncontrol- 
lable causes,  this  law  shall  be  curtailed  by  protection,  gives 
us  the  legitimate  sphere  of  both  systems. 

If  the  definition  of  protection  is  for  a  moment  recalled — 
the  security  of  the  possibilities  of  capital  and  industry — we 
find  a  beacon-light  whose  reflection  clearly  and  sharply 
designates  the  boundaries  of  its  rightful  domain.  The 
security  of  the  possibilities  of  capital  and  industry  consists 
in  the  equalization  of  producing,  creative  power.  The 
equalization  of  producing  power,  moreover,  consists  in 
the  establishment  of  a  uniform  degree  of  cheapness.  The 


4O8          THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

control  of  this  last  element  (if  the  expression  may  be  al- 
lowed) is  and  must  be  associated  with  goodness,  the  chief 
and  great  aim  of  successful  production. 

As  cheapness,  with  the  above  qualification,  is  the  chief 
end  of  commodity-creating  power,  we  are  forced  at  this 
point,  in  order  to  proceed  intelligibly,  to  make  a  brief 
examination  of  the  abstract  law  of  price.  Price  is  of  two 
kinds,  market  and  natural.  The  market  price  of  com- 
modities is  artificial,  and  depends  upon  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand.  Demand,  moreover,  as  to  its  extent,  is 
governed  by  the  excess  or  deficiency  of  the  supply.  The 
natural  price  of  commodities  is  the  true  exponent  of  their 
intrinsic  value  for  purposes  of  use,  consumption  or  exchange. 
The  factors,  the  component  parts,  of  this  natural  price  are 
three  in  number — namely,  rent,  profit  and  wages.  The 
first  denotes  the  compensation  paid  for  the  use  of  premises 
and  capital ;  the  second,  the  remuneration  necessary  to 
insure  a  continuance  of  production ;  and  the  third,  the 
expense  of  labor.  It  cannot  but  be  evident  that  all  these 
forces  are  weights  upon  the  power  of  production,  and  the 
greater  the  weight  the  higher  the  price  of  the  commodities 
in  which  such  production  eventuates.  A  diminution  of 
these  burdens  is  followed  by  a  reduction  of  price. 

Resuming,  for  a  moment,  the  line  of  thought  dismissed 
with  the  commencement  of  the  next  preceding  paragraph, 
as  cheapness  must  be  the  aim  of  successful  production,  and 
as  the  advantages  of  the  producing  power  determine  the 
extent  of  price,  we  are  prepared  for  the  proposition  that 
the  limit  of  the  office  of  protection  is  such  an  enhancement 
of  the  price  of  foreign  commodities,  by  force  of  statute 
law,  as  will  in  the  outset  give  them  the  same  degree  of 
cheapness  as  those  of  home  production.  As  to  what  com- 
modities the  law  of  protection  should  attach,  the  same  will 
appear  hereafter. 

At  this  juncture  various  attacks  are  made  upon  the  sound- 


PROTECTION  AMD  FREE    TRADE.  409 

ness  and  feasibility  of  the  protective  system.  A  repulsion 
of  these  attacks  will  now  be  essayed,  together  with  a  main- 
tenance of  both  the  correctness  and  desirability  of  the 
proposition  above  stated. 

The  system  of  protection,  as  already  intimated  and  is 
well  known,  seeks  the  attainment  of  its  end  by  means  of  a 
tariff  upon  imported  goods.  The  discussion  of  tariffs,  in 
either  their  abstract  or  relative  bearings,  is  not  necessary 
in  this  connection.  The  same  has  been  set  apart  for  the 
next  succeeding  chapter,  and  the  nature  of  the  institution 
is  too  familiar  to  require  its  anticipation. 

One  of  the  principal  objections  raised  by  the  opponents 
of  protection  against  the  system  consists  in  the  charge  that 
the  tariffs  imposed  upon  foreign  goods  by  such  a  policy 
enhance  the  price  of  domestic  commodities  of  the  same 
kind  in  a  sum  equal  to  that  of  the  impost,  and  that  until 
such  impost  is  removed.  This  is,  indeed,  the  chief 
onslaught  upon  the  system.  The  free  trade  theorists  mar- 
shal the  majority  of  their  forces  at  this  point  of  attack,  and 
dignify  it  as  the  object  of  ceaseless  hostility.  It  is,  in 
short,  a  rendezvous  for  the  assemblage  of  the  entire  host 
whenever  sallies  upon  other  defensive  positions  are  unsuc- 
cessful. The  favorite  language  of  the  combatants,  "The 
position  is  absurd,"  will  not  be  adopted  in  this  connection. 
It  is  simply  pronounced  wholly  untenable,  and  in  refutation 
thereof  the  proposition  is  declared  that  the  sole  ultimate 
agency  which  governs  price,  under  all  circumstances,  is  the 
cost  of  production.  This  truth  fully  appeared,  although 
somewhat  indirectly,  in  a  prior  portion  of  this  discussion. 
Its  proper  elucidation,  if  only  brief,  will  effectually  destroy 
the  force  of  the  free  trade  position  above  named,  and 
attention  will  now  be  directed  to  that  end. 

A  restatement  of  the  ///////  of  the  office  of  protection  will 
best  prepare  the  way  for  this  inquiry — namely,  such  an 
enhancement  of  the  price  of  foreign  commodities,  by  force 
35  S 


41 0         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  statute  law,  as  will  in  the  outset  give  them  the  same 
degree  of  cheapness  as  those  of  home  production.  The 
deduction  is  properly  made  from  this  proposition,  that  at 
the  commencement — in  the  outset — of  the  adoption  of  a 
protective  system  the  general  price  of  commodities  grasped 
by  this  impost  law  is  proportionately  augmented.  Let  not 
the  reader  be  here  misled ;  the  words  above  italicized 
form  an  important  qualification  to  the  truth  embodied  in 
the  above  remark.  By  an  enhancement  of  general  price  is 
intended  simply  this.  A  protective  tariff  presupposes  a 
state  of  relative  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  nation  which 
adopts  it ;  which  is  a  statement  in  another  form  that  certain 
commodities  can  be  had  cheaper  in  the  foreign  than  in  the 
home  market.  The  price  in  the  foreign  market,  free 
trade  ruling,  is  the  "general"  price,  because  the  cheapest, 
by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  all  other  prices  must  conform 
to  it.  A  protective  impost,  therefore,  as  it  increases  in 
the  outset  the  price  of  tariffed  commodities — of  foreign 
ones — increases  temporarily  the  general  price.  This  is  not, 
in  the  main,  however,  a  prejudicial  fact  of  sufficient  force 
to  be  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  an  obstacle.  Relatively 
speaking,  it  is  entirely  without  weight,  and  the  reason 
thereof  will  hereafter  appear.  At  present  it  is  a  side 
issue,  and  a  digression  for  its  discussion  will  not  be  tol- 
erated. The  statement  of  its  unworthiness  must  be  here 
taken  upon  trust :  proof  of  the  same  will  be  had  in 
another  connection. 

The  element  which  renders  the  continuance  of  the  en- 
hanced cost  of  tariffed  commodities  impossible,  and  one 
also  which  wholly  neutralizes  the  charge  of  the  free  trade 
theorists  now  under  consideration,  is  the  law  of  competi- 
tion. Without  this  the  enhanced  cost  above  noted  would 
prove  coextensive  with  the  reign  of  protection.  This  sal- 
utary agency,  however,  bars  the  transformation  of  a  tempo- 
rary mean  into  a  continuing  evil.  It  is  an  inseparable  at- 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  4!! 

tendant  of  production,  and  makes  the  cost  thereof  the  ruler 
of  price. 

Let  the  statement  and  the  law  receive  an  illustration. 
Let  it  be  supposed  that,  owing  to  inferior  advantages,  iron 
cannot  be  produced  in  the  United  States  at  a  price  less  than 
$20  per  ton,  but  that  Europe,  by  virtue  of  superior  facili- 
ties, can  lay  it  upon  our  shores  for  §15  per  ton.  Let  the 
further  supposition  be  made  that  the  former  nation  imposes 
a  duty  of  $10  per  ton  upon  European  iron,  and  under  such 
a  condition  of  things  what,  so  far  as  the  United  States  are 
concerned,  would  control  the  general  price  of  iron  ?  The 
general  price  of  iron,  in  accordance  with  principles  herein- 
before explained,  would  be  that  of  the  market  which  could 
furnish  it  the  cheapest,  and  that  market,  by  force  of  the 
tariff  above  premised,  would  be  found  in  this  country. 
But  press  the  inquiry  a  step  farther,  and  what  would  be  the 
moneyed  measure  of  this  general  price  ?  How  many  dol- 
lars would  the  purchase  of  a  ton  of  iron  require  ?  A  recur- 
rence to  the  price  of  American  iron  at  the  time  of  the  adop- 
tion of  the  supposed  tariff  is  requisite  for  a  solution  of  the 
problem,  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  $20  per  ton. 
Immediately  with  the  imposition  of  the  tariff  the  importa- 
tion of  European  iron  would  be,  to  some  extent,  restricted. 
The  call  for  American  iron  would  consequently  increase, 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand  would  assert  itself,  and  just 
in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  increase  of  demand  would  the 
price  of  American  iron — which  for  the  United  States  would 
also  be  the  general  price — be  advanced  beyond  $20  per  ton. 
The  advanced  price,  however,  would  be  artificial  and  tem- 
porary. The  former  price  of  $20  per  ton  yielded  a  paying 
profit  (else  the  iron  would  not  have  been  produced  at  all), 
and  the  advance  caused  by  the  restriction  of  importation, 
rendering  the  production  of  iron  attractive  by  reason  of  its 
extraordinary  returns,  would  speedily  draw  to  the  business 
additional  capital ;  production  would  be  increased,  the  law 


412         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  supply  and  demand  would  again  interfere,  and  the  gen- 
eral price  of  iron  would  recede  to  $20  a  ton.  In  other 
words,  the  law  of  competition,  which  forces  all  producers 
of  commodities  of  an  equal  goodness  to  make  the  cost  of 
production  the  basis  of  the  price  they  affix  to  their  wares, 
would  render  it  absolutely  impossible  for  the  general  price 
of  iron  under  the  hypothesis  to  stand  at  $25  per  ton — a  sum 
equal  to  the  original  general  price  (that  of  European  iron, 
$15)  and  the  amount  of  the  impost.  The  exact  point  to 
which  the  price  would  advance,  as  stated  in  a  prior  connec- 
tion, would  depend  solely  upon  the  extent  of  the  increase  of 
the  demand,  and  this  advance,  as  also  already  noted,  would 
be  purely  temporary.  This  is  not  all.  By  reason  of  this 
inducement  to  production  the  means  therefor  would  be  in- 
evitably multiplied  and  perfected,  the  cost  thereof  thereby 
lessened,  the  price  of  the  commodity  consequently  dimin- 
ished; thus  requiring  nothing  but  the  element  of  time  to 
place  the  price  of  the  home  product  at  a  point  which  would 
equal  in  cheapness  that  of  any  and  all  rivals,  when  protec- 
tion may  be  properly  withdrawn. 

In  the  light  of  unprejudiced,  dispassionate  reason  there 
seems  to  be  no  escape  from  these  conclusions.  The  above 
illustration  is  equally  applicable  to  any  commodity  to  which 
an  impost  may  attach.  It  gives  proof  of  a  general  princi- 
ple, and  not  alone  of  an  isolated  particular.  It  is  only  a 
simple  adherence  to  the  natural  law  of  cause  and  effect. 
Individuals  are  ever  watching  for  opportunity,  and  capital 
is  always  ready  to  lend  itself  for  what  is  considered  an  ade- 
quate consideration.  The  former  represent  the  latter,  and 
competition,  the  desire  for  extended  traffic,  is  constantly 
tending  to  reduce  the  price  of  all  products  to  the  minimum 
point  of  living  profit.  These  are  not  theories.  They  are 
notorious  facts  of  the  history  of  every-day  life.  Combina- 
tions for  the  maintenance  of  artificial  prices  have  always 
resulted  in  failure.  The  attempt  of  any  class  of  producers 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  413 

to  regularly  obtain  a  price  for  their  products  which  is  meas- 
ured by  the  rate  of  a  protective  impost,  without  regard  to 
the  cost  of  production,  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  such  a 
combination,  and  there  is  not  an  instance  of  its  success 
upon  record.  There  always  have  been,  and  always  will  be, 
plenty  of  business-projects  which  do  not  adequately  remu- 
nerate capital.  It  is  one  of  the  inevitable  consequences 
of  chance.  The  owners  of  capital  thus  employed  are  ever 
looking  with  a  restless  eye  for  an  opportunity  to  give  it 
more  profitable  employment,  and  by  virtue  of  this  fact,  with 
the  exception  of  parties  holding  such  exclusive  privileges 
as  patents  and  franchises  obtained  by  statute  law,  there  is 
not  a  producer  or  trafficker  in  any  section  of  Christendom 
who  is  not  compelled  to  reduce  the  profits  of  his  business 
to  a  limit  within  from  five  to  fifteen  per  cent,  in  advance 
of  the  rate  of  interest  which  the  use  of  money  will  command 
in  the  country  wherein  he  operates.  An  artificial  force  like 
a  tariff  is  powerless  to  destroy  this  law  of  nature,  this  prin- 
ciple of  competition;  and,  as  stated  in  the  outset,  with  sim- 
ply declaring  the  position  of  the  free  trade  theorists  upon 
the  point  in  issue  untenable,  and  relying  upon  the  foregoing 
comment  for  a  verification  of  the  statement,  the  same  is 
hereby  dismissed. 

The  foregoing  considerations  are  naturally  suggestive  of 
another  charge  made  by  the  free  trade  supporters  against 
the  policy  of  protection — a  charge,  in  short,  which  is  a 
logical  sequence  of  the  one  above  examined.  Reference  is 
had  to  the  argument  that  a  protective  system,  in  addition 
to  unduly  enhancing  prices,  directs  capital  and  industry 
from  their  natural  channels,  and  in  so  doing  not  only 
works  the  injury  of  these  particular  forces,  but  also  discour- 
ages and  prejudices  the  entire  machinery  of  the  community 
of  commerce.  The  claim  is  of  a  double  character,  and 
each  aspect  of  the  case  requires,  although  but  a  brief,  a 
separate  consideration. 
35* 


4H         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

As  to  the  diversion  of  capital  and  industry  from  their 
natural  channels,  the  inquiry  is  pertinent,  What  are  the 
natural  channels  of  these  forces  of  the  body  politic  ?  There 
is  but  one  answer  to  the  interrogatory — namely :  The  oc- 
cupation naturally  sought  by  these  agencies  is  that  which 
affords  the  greatest  remuneration.  If  the  system  of  protec- 
tion points  in  such  directions,  they  will  undoubtedly  avail 
themselves  of  its  guidance.  But  does  this  fact  work  the 
injury  of  the  respective  forces  ?  The  affirmation  of  the  ques- 
tion cannot  be  even  speciously  maintained.  A  betterment 
of  present  condition  can  by  no  manner  of  means  be  deno- 
minated an  evil,  at  least  so  far  as  the  direct  beneficiaries  are 
concerned.  Individual  and  national  prosperity  are  not  thus 
jeopardized.  The  extreme  limit  of  the  free  trade  argument 
in  this  direction,  however,  is  not  yet  refuted.  The  addi- 
tional point  is  made  that  although  in  the  outset  the  interests 
of  capital  and  industry  may  be  advanced  by  accepting  the 
lead  of  the  protective  system,  they  will  encounter  ultimate 
defeat  by  reason  of  the  extended  competition  which  is  sure 
to  attach  to  all  employments  that  are  unusually  lucrative. 
The  free  trade  supporters  are  here  placed  in  an  unhappy 
position.  In  a  prior  connection  it  appeared  that  the  power 
of  this  law  of  competition  was  denied,  and  the  price  of 
tariffed  commodities  was  claimed  to  be  regulated  by  the 
extent  of  the  impost,  without  regard  to  the  effect  of  com- 
petition, which  makes  the  cost  of  production  the  basis  of 
price.  In  the  present  instance,  however,  the  advocates  of 
free  trade  summon  this  law  of  competition  to  their  aid,  and 
argue  the  overthrow  of  capital  and  industry  by  reason  of 
its  operation.  The  former  discussion  will  not  be  resumed. 
The  force  of  the  law  of  competition,  however,  is  here 
allowed,  as  it  was  in  the  former  instance  maintained.  But 
this  allowance  will  not  substantiate  the  point  above  ad- 
vanced. Capital  is  timid  of  hazard,  and  industry  views 
change  with  suspicion.  The  owners  of  the  one  and  direct- 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  415 

ors  of  the  other  are  fully  cognizant  of  the  rivalry  which 
characterizes  all  highly  remunerative  projects.  They  need 
no  writer  upon  either  free  trade  or  protection  to  advise 
them  of  the  probabilities  of  failure  and  success  therein. 
They  strictly  abide  by  the  law  of  safety.  With  a  full  know- 
ledge that  the  profits  of  all  pursuits  must  be  eventually 
reduced  to  within  a  compass  hereinbefore  defined,  they 
will  not  embrace  the  vocations  which  protection  allegedly 
fosters  unless  the  average  possibilities  of  success  in  that 
direction  seem  palpably  more  certain  than  in  their  present 
fields  of  operation.  Errors  of  judgment,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  there  are  here  as  elsewhere,  but  the  majority  of 
cases  proves  the  correctness  of  the  above  ideas,  and  the 
greater  portion  of  capital  and  industry  drawn  to  new  pur- 
suits by  a  protective  system  is  that  which  is  not  earning  an 
adequate  consideration  in  present  employment — that  which 
is  not  paying  a  living  profit. 

In  respect  to  the  second  aspect  of  the  charge  in  question, 
that  the  alleged  diversion  of  capital  and  industry  from  their 
natural  channels  discourages  and  prejudices  the  entire  ma- 
chinery of  the  community  of  commerce,  the  same  can  be 
disposed  of  with  equal  brevity.  The  movers  of  this  theory 
always  associate  the  argument  with  the  statement  that  the 
industrial  pursuits  of  a  country  cannot  be  extended  beyond 
the  ability  of  the  aggregate  amount  of  capital  in  the  country 
to  support  them ;  and  that  as  the  capital  of  a  nation  is 
always  all  employed  in  the  working  of  some  industrial  enter- 
prise, any  shifting  of  the  same  tends  to  the  pernicious  re- 
sults above  defined.  That  the  extent  of  the  industries  of 
every  people  is  measured  by  the  amount  of  their  capital, 
there  is  no  denial.  That  a  protective  system,  moreover, 
tends  to  change  in  a  certain  degree  the  employment  of  such 
capital,  is  equally  clear;  but  that  the  commercial  world  is 
jeopardized  by  the  existence  of  these  facts,  does  not  neces- 
sarily follow.  It  is  in  no  respect  a  natural  sequence.  The 


41 6         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

argument  recoils  upon  itself.  The  simple  fact  that  a  pro- 
tective system  or  any  other  cause  entices  capital  from  its 
former  uses  is  proof  conclusive  that  its  prior  field  of  opera- 
tion was  not  ordinarily  remunerative.  It  is,  in  short,  the 
most  direct  evidence  that  the  limits  of  its  old  vocation  were 
crowded — that  the  particular  business  was  overworked.  As 
stated  in  a  prior  connection,  capital  and  industry  will  not 
be  induced  to  make  new  adventures  without  fully  contem- 
plating the  possibility  and  probability  of  success.  By 
virtue  of  their  assurance  that  every  industrial  pursuit  must 
eventually  be  content,  by  reason  of  competition,  with  the 
receipt  of  ordinary  profits  (hereinbefore  defined),  they  will 
not  assume  the  hazard  of  a  new  undertaking  unless  the 
average  profits  of  their  present  employment  are  less  than 
ordinary.  The  office  of  protection  in  reference  to  the  point 
here  at  issue  is  within  these  precise  limits.  It  diverts 
capital  and  industry  from  former  channels,  it  is  true.  The 
cause  of  the  diversion,  however,  is  the  less  than  ordinary 
remuneration  received  therein,  and  the  reason  of  this  in- 
adequate compensation — of  this  less  than  ordinary  profit — 
is  simply  because  the  old  fields  of  employment  were  over- 
crowded and  overworked.  Protection,  in  short,  directs 
capital  and  industry  from  unremunerative  to  remunerative 
production.  It  relieves  the  crowded  and  overworked  avenues 
of  industry  by  opening  a  way  to  the  prosecution  of  new  indus- 
trial pursuits — -pursuits  which  have  previously  been  monopo- 
lized by  foreign  countries  to  the  exclusion  of  the  one  which  is 
led  to  invoke  the  aid  of  protection.  Are  the  interests  of  the 
community  of  commerce  jeopardized  by  such  conditions  ? 
The  inquiry  cannot  be  affirmed. 

Intimately  associated  with  this  exact  point,  indeed,  is 
the  very  germ  of  national  prosperity.  The  real  strength 
of  every  people  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  their  produ- 
cing power.  Production,  in  short,  is  the  sole  stepping-stone 
to  a  successful  commerce,  and  it  is  consequently  of  the 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  417 

most  vital  importance  that  the  productive  enterprises  of  a 
nation  shall  afford  an  adequate  return  for  the  employment 
of  capital  and  labor — shall  eventuate  in  products  the  sale 
and  exchange  of  which  will  yield  the  maximum  amount  of 
commercial  profit.  The  operation  of  protection,  as  seen  in 
the  words  last  italicized,  guides  a  nation  with  its  capital 
and  industry  in  precisely  this  direction.  It  is  not  an  in- 
fringement of  liberty.  Liberty  is  but  a  relative  term ;  it 
is  simply  freedom  from  compulsion.  Protection  compels 
neither  interests  nor  individuals.  It  merely  offers  induce- 
ments, and  leaves  their  acceptance  to  discretion.  So  far  as 
it  lays  its  hand  upon  capital  and  industry,  the  foregoing 
truths,  viewed  dispassionately  and  candidly,  give  ample 
warrant  for  the  assertion  that  the  system  is  a  mere  compli- 
ance with  the  law  of  self-preservation,  a  simple  position  of 
defence,  an  equalizer  of  opportunity,  a  guardian  of  infancy 
against  age,  a  shield  for  the  security  of  natural  advantages. 
From  these  general  objections  against  a  protective  system 
the  advocates  of  free  trade  descend  to  those  which  are  more 
special  and  less  comprehensive.  One  of  the  most  favorite 
of  these  minor  claims  is,  that  the  law  of  protection  is  a 
system  of  monopoly.  The  argument  has  a  double  aspect, 
individual  and  local.  Of  these  in  their  order.  In  refer- 
ence to  individuals  the  point  is  made  that  protection  en- 
riches the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many.  The  simple 
meaning  of  the  term  "monopoly"  constitutes  a  perfect 
refutation  of  the  charge.  Strictly  speaking,  monopolies 
have  no  existence  whatever  in  the  United  States.  A  mo- 
nopoly is  a  vested  right  to  accomplish  certain  ends  by  all 
possible  means.  It  is  absolute  exclusion.  Such  monopolies, 
in  a  relative  sense,  were  incident  to  the  early  English  law, 
but  have  ever  been  regarded  as  foreign  to  the  genius  and 
spirit  of  our  institutions.  The  nearest  approximation  to  a 
system  of  monopolies  in  this  country  is  found  in  the  law  of 
patents  and  franchises.  By  virtue  of  these  institutions  an 

82 


41 8          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

individual,  or  an  association  of  individuals  in  a  corporate 
form,  can  obtain  a  vested  but  limited  right  to  accomplish 
certain  ends  by  one  particular  mean.  For  example,  a 
patent  may  be  obtained  upon  one  method  of  making  steel  or 
communicating  intelligence  by  electricity,  but  not  upon 
the  abstract  principle  itself.  A  corporation  may  obtain  a 
franchise  to  build  a  railroad  or  establish  a  line  of  water- 
travel  between  two  given  points  within  certain  bounds,  but 
not  within  all  bounds.  A  subsequent  inventor  of  an  addi- 
tional method  of  making  steel  or  communicating  intelli- 
gence by  electricity,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  projector  of  a 
new  line  of  travel  between  the  same  points,  within  different 
bounds,  on  the  other,  can  obtain  their  respective  patent  and 
franchise ;  and  so  on  indefinitely.  These  are  only  com- 
parative monopolies.  But  even  such  monopolies  protec- 
tion neither  creates  nor  fosters.  The  system  does  not 
establish  a  law  whereby  parties  by  individual  and  corporate 
name  can  secure  such  comparative  exclusive  privileges  as 
those  above  named.  It  opens  the  door  to  vocations  which 
afford  an  ordinary  profit.  Through  that  door  any  who 
choose  may  pass,  but  with  the  express  condition  that  in  the 
avenues  of  industry  beyond  all  parties  must  be  subject  to  the 
law  of  universal  competition.  Is  that  monopoly  ?  Not  at 
all.  The  opportunities  afforded  by  protection  are  open  to 
the  entire  public,  and  if  they  seem  unusually  attractive,  every 
one  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  avail  himself  of  their  privileges. 
Competition  is  monarch  of  the  field,  and  monopoly  is  im- 
possible. 

Thus  much  for  the  individual  aspect  of  the  argument.  A 
word  in  respect  to  the  local.  Upon  this  phase  of  the  ques- 
tion the  claim  is  advanced  that  protection  builds  up  par- 
ticular to  the  prejudice  of  general  localities.  It  is  difficult 
to  refrain  from  denominating  the  position  one  of  absolute 
selfishness.  If  a  recurrence  is  had  to  the  discussion  of  the 
law  of  competition,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  indus- 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  419 

trial  pursuits  opened  by  a  protective  system  are  only  sought 
by  capital  and  industry  engaged  in  enterprises  that  fail  to 
realize  ordinary  returns.  Now,  let  it  be  supposed  that  a 
given  locality  has  latent  advantages  for  the  production  of 
iron,  but  that  the  artificial  facilities  of  foreign  countries 
render  its  manufacture  impossible.  A  protective  tariff  is 
imposed,  and  capital  and  industry  unprofitably  employed 
(no  other  will)  essay  the  smelting  of  iron  ore.  The  enter- 
prise will  undoubtedly  give  the  locality  a  marked  ascend- 
ency over  others  less  favored  by  Nature.  The  comparison 
to  the  latter  will  be  disagreeable.  But  is  this  a  reason  why 
the  natural  advantages  of  one  point — advantages  which  are 
the  germ  of  enterprises  exclusively  conducted  by  foreign 
nations — shall  be  undeveloped  ?  The  system  of  protection 
contemplates  national  not  local  weal.  It  does  not  assume  to 
equalize  the  prosperity  of  all  sections  of  the  country.  It 
does  not  assume  to  make  a  garden  of  the  wilderness.  It 
does  not  assume  to  create,  but  to  develop,  national  strength  ; 
and  for  this  purpose  it  yokes  its  forces  to  natural  advan- 
tages, natural  means,  wherever  it  finds  them,  and  in  as 
many  localities  as  possible.  The  more  the  better.  This 
is  national  prosperity,  general  advancement.  The  charge 
that  protection  advances  one  section  at  the  expense  of 
others  is  simply  to  make  it  responsible  for  the  favoritisms 
of  Nature. 

Akin  to  this  claim  of  the  opponents  of  protection  is  the 
one  which  charges  that  the  system  supports  ignorance.  It 
does  not.  Such  support  is  impossible.  So  far  as  industrial 
pursuits  are  concerned,  ignorance  is  death.  Goodness 
(quality)  is  an  indispensable  requisite  in  all  products, 
whether  natural  or  artificial.  No  matter  how  great  the  con- 
trast in  price,  the  great  majority  of  the  consuming  world 
seek  a  market  which  offers  the  best  commodities,  for  that 
alone  is  real  economy.  Cheapness,  it  is  true,  is  the  chief 
aim  of  all  production,  but  never  at  the  expense  of  goodness 


420         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

if  the  production  is  to  be  successful.  If  capital  and  in- 
dustry, diverted  to  new  channels  of  enterprise  by  pro- 
tection, offer  the  consuming  world  commodities  of  such 
quality  as  will  stand  ordinary  inspection,  they  will  be  pat- 
ronized— otherwise,  not.  Self-interest  makes  the  opposite 
impossible. 

.  The  line  of  this  discussion  for  two  remaining  purposes 
must  be  still  defensive — namely,  a  refutation  of  the  claims 
that  protection  is  taxation  and  a  bar  upon  exports.  Of 
these  in  their  order. 

In  respect  to  the  first,  the  gist  of  the  argument  lies  in  the 
claim  that  a  protective  tariff  enhances  the  general  price  of 
all  commodities  to  which  it  attaches,  together  with  that  of 
all  products  of  which  they  form  a  part.  If  the  primal 
charge  were  true,  the  latter  as  a  natural  consequence  would 
be  correct.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  main  propo- 
sition is  false,  the  corollary  one  is  also  untenable.  The 
only  necessary  position  to  maintain  in  this  connection, 
therefore,  is  that  protection  does  not  enhance  the  general 
price  of  tariffed  commodities.  This  has  been  already 
proven  in  a  prior  connection,  when  it  was  shown  that  by 
force  of  the  law  of  competition  the  cost  of  production 
under  all  circumstances  is  the  sole  basis  of  price — that  pro- 
tection, in  other  words,  is  not  taxation.  The  points  of 
that  discussion  will  not  be  reaffirmed.  The  same  can  be 
referred  to  at  option.  Relying  thereon,  it  is  sufficient  here 
to  simply  say  that  neither  does  a  protective  impost  augment 
nor  its  removal  reduce  the  general  price  of  tariffed  com- 
modities. 

The  final  aggressive  point  made  by  the  opponents  of 
protection  embodies  the  theory  that  the  system  prevents 
the  exportation  of  home  products.  A  nation,  they  say, 
must  buy  if  it  expects  to  sell.  Relatively  speaking,  the  last 
proposition  is  correct.  The  position  of  the  free  trade 
theorists  thereon,  however,  is  deceptive.  The  idea  they 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  421 

essay  to  clothe  with  this  language  is  that  if  by  a  protective 
tariff  the  importation  of  special  commodities  is  diminished, 
the  aggregate  exportation  of  all  products  is  proportionately 
reduced.  That  is,  for  example,  if  the  United  States  by  an 
impost  upon  iron  prevent  the  importation  of  a  quantity  of 
that  metal  to  the  value  of  $50,000,000  per  annum,  our 
total  moneyed  exportation  of  coal,  cotton,  cereals,  manu- 
factured goods,  and  everything,  in  short,  which  helps  to 
make  up  the  list  of  our  salable  products,  will  experience  a 
corresponding  or  greater  yearly  diminution.  The  argu- 
ment is  specious,  but  not  defensible.  It  is  a  violation  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  law  of  exchange.  There 
may  be,  as  there  have  been,  it  is  true,  isolated  instances  in 
which,  simply  as  a  measure  of  retaliation,  nations  have 
resorted  to  acts  of  legislation  looking  to  a  total  or  partial 
prohibition  of  the  purchase  of  products  of  other  countries 
which  have  shielded  their  industries  with  a  system  of  pro- 
tection. An  impost  which  is  imposed  merely  as  a  lex  tal- 
i&nis,  however,  instead  of  a  needed  measure  of  protection 
to  home  industry,  will  be  allowed  but  a  brief  existence ; 
for,  as  it  fails  to  promote  either  individual  or  national  pros- 
perity (as  it  is  not  protection),  it  amounts  to  nothing  more 
or  less  than  self-inflicted  punishment.  It  is  a  contradiction 
of  self-interest,  of  ordinary  prudence.  The  incentives  to 
profitable  traffic  will  work  the  speedy  destruction  of  a 
barrier  so  purely  artificial  and  unnecessary.  But  in  the 
absence  of  such  retaliative  measures  the  opponents  of  pro- 
tection press  the  point  that  politic  considerations  will 
induce  the  former  purchasers  of  a  protective  state  to  with- 
draw their  patronage,  and  prevent  the  addition  of  new 
names  to  its  list  of  customers.  Impossible  !  An  illus- 
tration, prefaced  by  the  statement  of  a  general  principle, 
will  best  serve  the  inquiry.  A  protective  tariff  is  only 
imposed  upon  such  commodities  as  those  in  the  production 
of  which  a  particular  nation  is  obliged  to  engage  in  an 
86 


422         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

unequal  strife  with  other  countries.  Or,  to  state  it  nega- 
tively, the  system  of  protection  never  lays  an  impost  upon 
such  commodities  as  are  not  or  cannot  be  produced  within 
the  country  subject  to  its  laws.  Now,  for  the  example 
promised,  take  the  cases  of  the  United  States  and  England. 
Both  countries  are  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  iron  and 
steel.  The  former,  relatively  speaking,  is  alone  a  producer 
of  cotton  and  tobacco.  The  United  States  lays  a  protective 
impost  upon  iron  and  steel  in  order  to  neutralize  the  force 
of  the  superior  facilities,  resulting  alone  from  age,  which 
England  possesses  for  their  production.  The  sales  of  iron 
and  steel  from  England  to  the  United  States  are  conse- 
quently very  materially  diminished  ;  but  will  England,  by 
reason  of  that  fact,  cease  to  buy  cotton  and  tobacco  of  this 
country?  Only  in  one  event — namely,  when  the  United 
States  cease  to  put  in  market  cotton  and  tobacco  of  equal 
quality  for  a  less  price  than  other  producers  of  these  staples. 
Man,  as  Aristotle  says,  is  a  reasoning  animal,  and  in  pecu- 
niary matters,  at  least,  adheres  rigidly  to  the  maxim  of  the 
English  classic,  that  "The  better  part  of  valor  is  dis- 
cretion." Nations  are  made  up  of  individuals.  The 
former  act  only  as  the  latter  direct.  Government  exists 
only  as  its  people  prosper,  and  in  the  case  above  mentioned 
the  English  people — England — are  not  going  to  increase 
the  cost  of  their  annual  supply  of  cotton  and  tobacco  by, 
say,  $50,000,000  or  any  other  sum,  by  buying  their  staples 
in  a  dearer  market  than  the  United  States,  simply  to  spite 
us  for  protecting  the  manufacture  of  our  steel  and  iron. 
The  elements  of  quality  and  cheapness,  associated  with  the 
general  principle  which  prefaced  the  above  illustration, 
govern  the  entire  question. 

The  same  general  law  as  is  embodied  in  the  foregoing 
will  apply  to  all  products  of  our  own  or  other  countries  to 
which  the  system  of  protection  does  not  attach.  Nearly 
every  nation  has  a  climatic  or  local  patent  of  Nature  for 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  423 

the  exclusive,  or  very  nearly  the  exclusive,  production  of 
certain  commodities.  Competition  with  it,  if  not  impossi- 
ble, is  useless.  For  these  special  products  it  is  the  market 
of  the  world.  God,  by  the  law  of  Nature,  has  so  ordained. 
The  sale  of  such  commodities,  relatively  speaking,  constitutes 
under  all  circumstances  the  whole  of  a  nation' s  export  trade. 
What  is  the  agency  that  can  prevent  such  sale  ?  None.  Both 
protection  and  free  trade  are  powerless  in  the  premises.  If 
the  world  has  only  one  market  in  which  to  purchase  coal, 
in  that  market  it  must  buy.  If  it  has  two  or  more  markets, 
quality  considered,  it  will  buy  in  that  which  is  the  cheap- 
est. But  allow,  for  the  moment,  that  the  system  of  retalia- 
tion will  be  adopted.  It  makes  no  difference.  Those  prod- 
ucts which  bear  the  impress  of  a  local  or  climatic  patent 
will  be  bought  by  some  one.  Commerce  will  not  nor  can- 
not be  restricted  by  such  means,  and  it  is  only  a  question 
whether  the  sales  shall  be  direct  or  indirect,  or,  in  the 
language  of  traffic,  whether  there  shall  be  a  "middleman  " 
in  the  transaction;  that  is,  in  the  case  above  stated,  shall 
England  buy  cotton  and  tobacco  of  the  United  States,  or 
of  another  nation  which  has  purchased  therefrom? 

The  discussion  of  this  immediate  sub-subject  will  be  con- 
cluded with  two  general  allusions,  both  of  which  are  of 
paramount  import.  Material  prosperity  is  the  real  founda- 
tion of  national  greatness.  The  former  is  measured  by  the 
extent  of  a  nation's  producing  force.  Production,  in  short, 
relatively  speaking,  is  the  sole  means  for  the  promotion  of 
the  general  welfare.  The  absence  of  it  in  new  countries 
denotes  repose,  and  in  old  ones  is  conclusive  evidence  of 
decay.  Commerce  is  but  the  world's  vehicle  for  the  trans- 
portation of  the  products  of  industry :  production  is  the 
supply-store  from  which  it  gathers  its  freight.  It  is  the 
boundary-line  between  a  purely  nomadic  life,  which  is  but 
one  remove  from  barbarism,  and  a  general  status  of  ex- 
change, which  is  the  primal  exponent  of  civilization.  It  is 


424          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  origin  of  both  individual  and  national  wealth.  These 
are  condensed  statements  of  general  truths  which  have  been 
so  fully  elaborated  in  prior  connections  that  their  correct- 
ness will  hardly  be  assailed.  A  maintenance  of  the  general 
proposition  that  production  is  an  absolute  prerequisite  of 
national  prosperity  is  certainly  wholly  unnecessary. 

From  this  premise  the  deduction  is  both  logical  and 
forcible  that  the  greater  the  resources,  so  to  speak,  of  pro- 
duction, the  more  rapid  the  pace  of  general  development — 
that  the  more  numerous  the  agencies  which  are  placed  at 
its  disposal,  the  more  commanding  the  position  of  the 
country  wherein  they  operate.  This  brief  comment  is  now 
narrowed  down  to  the  single  point  that  the  most  vital  element 
of  a  true  economic  policy  is  the  enlistment  of  the  largest  pos- 
sible amount  of  labor  in  the  ranks  of  productive  industry. 
This  is  the  precise  end  of  protection ;  and  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  concentrates  the  forces  of  production  and 
commerce — places  the  producer  and  consumer  side  by  side. 
These  two  forces,  as  already  seen,  are  wholly  dependent 
one  upon  the  other.  Unless  the  commodities  of  production 
are  devoured  by  commercial  consumption,  the  forces  of 
the  former  must  stay  their  hand;  and  if  productive  industry 
ceases  its  toil,  the  wheels  of  commerce  can  no  longer  re- 
volve. Now,  if  these  interests  are  widely  separated  in 
point  of  locality,  the  agencies  which  will  be  required  to 
furnish  means  of  communication  between  them,  to  place 
the  commodities  of  production  in  the  possession  of  com- 
merce, will  be  greater  in  number  than  those  engaged  in 
their  immediate  service;  and  by  just  the  extent  of  the  force 
engaged  in  this  work  of  transportation,  in  a  proportionate 
ratio  will  production  be  curtailed — minus  the  additional 
attendance  which  its  increase  would  require — and,  rela- 
tively speaking,  the  growth  of  the  nation  suffer  delay. 
The  point  requires  no  further  amplification.  The  character 
and  rapidity  of  national  development  are  defined  and  meas- 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE,  425 

ured  by  the  limit  of  producing  power.  This  latter  protec- 
tion augments  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it  gives  production 
and  consumption  an  immediate  territorial  acquaintance, 
and  releases  the  forces  which  would  otherwise  be  required 
to  provide  them  with  means  of  communication. 

The  other  general  allusion  referred  to  in  a  prior  connec- 
tion is  simply  the  statement  of  a  self-evident  truth,  instead 
of  the  assertion  or  maintenance  of  an  economic  proposition. 
It  is  simply  this :  Protection,  to  accomplish  its  legitimate 
purpose,  should  be  characterized  by  stability.  It  should 
never  be  vacillating.  The  effect  of  a  periodical  system  of 
protection  is  plainly  apparent.  Capital  and  industry  not 
only  suffer  by  its  actual  changes,  but  the  fear  of  its  possible 
mutations  possesses  them  with  distrust,  till  they  eventually 
refuse  to  prosecute  the  industries  which  the  true  system  is 
designed  to  develop,  and  thereby  render  the  institution  not 
only  mythical  instead  of  real,  but  an  injury  instead  of  an 
aid. 

This  investigation  of  the  limits  of  protection  (and  there- 
by of  free  trade)  cannot  receive  a  more  forcible  conclusion 
than  to  summon  the  words  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  one  of  the 
ablest  defenders  of  the  latter  doctrine,  to  their  support. 
Says  Mr.  Mill:  "The  only  case  in  which,  on  mere  princi- 
ples of  political  economy,  protecting  duties  can  be  defensi- 
ble is  when  they  are  imposed  temporarily  (especially  in  a 
young  and  rising  nation)  in  hopes  of  naturalizing  a  foreign 
industry  in  itself  perfectly  suitable  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  country.  The  superiority  of  one  country  over  another 
in  a  branch  of  production  often  arises  only  from  having 
begun  it  sooner.  There  may  be  no  inherent  advantage  on 
the  one  part  or  disadvantage  on  the  other,  but  only  a  pres- 
ent superiority  of  acquired  skill  and  experience.  A  country 
which  has  this  skill  and  experience  yet  to  acquire  may  in 
other  respects  be  better  adapted  to  the  production  than 
those  which  were  earlier  in  the  field ;  and  besides,  it  is  a 

36* 


426        THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

just  remark  that  nothing  has  a  greater  tendency  to  promote 
improvement  in  any  branch  of  production  than  its  trial 
under  a  new  set  of  conditions.  But  it  cannot  be  expected 
that  individuals  should,  at  their  own  risk,  or  rather  to  their 
certain  loss,  introduce  a  new  manufacture  and  bear  the 
burden  of  carrying  it  on  until  the  producers  have  been 
educated  up  to  the  level  of  those  with  whom  the  processes 
are  traditional.  A  protecting  duty,  continued  for  a  reason- 
able time,  will  sometimes  be  the  least  inconvenient  mode 
in  which  the  nation  can  tax  itself  for  the  support  of  such 
an  experiment." 

IV.  THE  COLLATERAL  TENDENCIES  OF  THE  Two  INSTITU- 
TIONS. 

The  foregoing  comment  has  relied,  for  the  most  part, 
upon  the  force  of  mere  material,  pecuniary  considerations 
to  commend  itself  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader  and  in- 
sure it  the  warrant  of  his  affirmation.  That  it  will  receive 
a  general  indorsement  is  not,  of  course,  for  a  moment  an- 
ticipated. The  subject  is  too  abstruse  to  admit  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  universal  agreement  thereon.  It  presents  itself, 
however,  upon  other  grounds  than  those  which  have  just 
passed  from  consideration.  It  is  intimately  associated  with 
the  foremost  aims  of  an  intelligent  civilization,  and  is  not 
a  mere  question  of  material  wealth.  As  with  individuals 
so  with  nations,  there  is  a  certain  status,  so  to  speak,  of 
moral  strength  which  moneyed  possessions  are  powerless  to 
command.  The  importance  thereof  it  is  impossible  to 
over-estimate.  It  is  something  more  than  a  mere  ally  of 
abstract  wealth  in  the  attainment  of  national  greatness.  A 
just  appreciation  of  patent  facts  places  it  far  above  a  simple 
peerage  with  pecuniary  power.  Its  superiority  is  undoubted 
and  unimpeachable,  for  by  virtue  of  its  possession  material 
greatness,  with  all  its  attendant  and  collateral  advantages, 
are  ever  wholly  at  command.  It  is,  in  short,  the  leading 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE   TRADE.  427 

force  of  social  science,  and  is  hardly  susceptible  of  defini- 
tion by  a  single  phrase.  It  will  not  answer  to  simply  des- 
ignate it  by  the  term  intelligence ;  neither  does  the  word 
culture  adequately  portray  its  character.  Its  nature  par- 
takes of  both,  and  yet  the  principle  has  a  far  more  extended 
compass.  If  we  were  compelled  to  summon  a  single  word 
to  stand  as  an  exponent  of  its  meaning,  that  word  would  be 
acquisition.  It  is  a  status  which  consists  in  the  education 
of  both  the  head  and  the  hand,  the  development  of  physical 
and  mental  strength. 

The  proposition  resolves  itself  into  several  minor  con- 
siderations, a  brief  investigation  of  one  or  more  of  which 
will  render  more  apparent  the  force  of  the  general  principle 
herein  maintained.  And  first  as  to  its  relations  to  manual 
labor.  The  truth  is  perfectly  self-evident,  and  yet  frequently 
lost  sight  of,  that  the  power  of  physical  as  well  as  mental 
labor  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  the  education  with  which 
it  has  been  favored.  This  education  of  the  hand  is  of 
course  somewhat  different  from  that  of  the  head.  The 
former  has  but  one  stage — the  acquisition  of  physical  skill 
by  simple  practice,  and  may  be  called  a  process  of  training 
only ;  while  the  latter  has  two — the  mental  collation  of  ab- 
stract facts,  and  their  application  to  purposes  of  practical 
import.  The  first  is  skill  in  creation,  and  may  be  styled 
an  art ;  while  the  latter  is  skill  in  creation  and  reception  as 
well,  and  may  be  termed  a  science.  Yet  both  are  educa- 
tion, and  the  extent  thereof  fixes  the  limit  of  the  usefulness 
of  the  respective  pupils. 

The  thought  is  now  reduced  to  a  closer  compass,  and 
presents  the  naked  question  of  rude  and  skilled  labor;  and 
in  this  connection  let  it  be  remembered  that  reference  is 
had  alone  to  manual  labor  as  distinguished  from  mental. 
In  the  opening  chapter  of  this  treatise  the  different  stages 
of  human  progress  from  barbarism  to  civilization  were 
traced  and  defined — namely,  the  finding,  the  pastoral  or 


428          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

nomadic,  and  the  agricultural  stages.  A  moment's  reflec- 
tion will  show  that  the  labor  incident  to  the  first  two  was 
of  the  rudest  possible  character,  but  with  the  inauguration 
of  the  agricultural  period  man  became  a  producer,  the 
dawn  of  civilization  first  lent  light  to  his  barbaric  state, 
and  he  began  to  educate  his  hand  in  the  habits  of  skilled 
labor,  as  seen  in  the  pursuit  of  tillage.  An  additional  ad- 
vance step,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  here  induced — 
namely,  the  acquisition  of  skill  for  the  fabrication  of  agri- 
cultural implements. 

The  gist  of  this  question  of  rude  and  skilled  labor,  as 
connected  with  the  doctrines  of  protection  and  free  trade, 
is  now  arrived  at.  On  the  supposition  that  a  country  has  a 
large  territorial  area,  is  it  policy  for  its  people  to  confine 
their  labor  exclusively  to  its  cultivation  ?  An  affirmation 
of  the  inquiry  is  fraught  with  collateral  results  of  the 
gravest  possible  character.  It  amounts  to  a  simple  asser- 
tion that  the  education  of  labor  shall  cease ;  that  it  shall  be 
confined  within  the  swaddling-clothes  of  its  natal  existence  ; 
that  latent  talents  and  forces  with  which  God  had  possessed 
a  common  humanity  shall  cease  to  be  developed  :  that  hu- 
man progress  shall  stay  its  march  of  civilization.  If  we 
look  for  the  authority  by  which  legislation  shall  passively 
assume  to  set  its  fetters  upon  this  natural  law  of  advance- 
ment, the  search  will  be  poorly  rewarded.  It  resolves  itself 
into  a  quest  for  a  law  which  says  that  man  shall  direct  the 
will  of  God.  If  the  Creator  has  endowed  His  creatures 
with  inherent  capacity  to  fill  the  advanced  stages  of  social 
existence,  we  must  admit  that  He  intended  such  strength  to 
be  developed  and  employed,  or  else  assent  to  the  proposi- 
tion that  He  has  indulged  in  creation  without  a  purpose, 
which  is  equivalent  to  denying  His  attributes  of  God.  The 
employment  of  portions  of  humanity  in  following  the 
plough  who  are  by  Nature  fitted  for  the  facture  of  wares 
which  are  demanded  for  the  good  of  the  community,  and 


PROTECTION  AND   FREE    TRADE.  429 

whose  creation  is  more  productive  of  material  wealth,  is,  to 
say  the  least,  a  policy  of  waste,  if  not  the  commission  of 
absolute  sin.  The  same  truth  is  applicable  to  all  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  human  progress,  whether  physical  or  men- 
tal, and  its  further  extension  is  wholly  unnecessary. 

The  reasoning  is  not  to  be  confined  to  the  solitary  in- 
stances of  agriculture  and  manufactures,  as  above  stated, 
and  yet  the  tendencies  for  good  or  evil  in  this  direction 
alone  are  almost  boundless.  The  pursuit  of  agriculture,  to 
the  comparative  or  total  exclusion  of  other  industrial  enter- 
prises, bears  directly  upon  the  extent  and  rapidity  with 
which  a  country  is  peopled.  The  statement  is  warranted 
by  all  past  history,  and  its  truthfulness,  indeed,  is  self-evi- 
dent, that  purely  agricultural  countries  are  not  only  sparsely 
settled,  but  also  in  a  very  isolated  manner.  The  very 
nature  of  the  vocation  renders  an  opposite  condition  of 
things  entirely  impossible.  The  status  of  our  Southern 
country  pertinently  illustrates  the  position.  The  South  has 
always  been,  in  a  comparative  degree,  exclusively  engaged 
in  the  production  of  a  few  agricultural  staples,  and  with  but 
a  very  few  exceptions  south  of  the  forty-fifth  parallel  of  lati- 
tude its  people  are  not  massed  in  cities  or  towns  of  above 
from  four  to  ten  thousand  inhabitants.  Its  aggregate  popu- 
lation, moreover,  bears  no  relative  proportion  to  that  of  the 
North  and  West.  The  constant  increase  in  the  number  of 
our  inhabitants  as  a  nation  has  always  been  principally  in 
the  latter  sections.  It  cannot  but  be  plain  to  any  reflecting 
mind  that  incentives  to  an  increase  of  population,  particu- 
larly in  the  case  of  nations  with  a  wide  expanse  of  territory, 
constitute  the  direct  key  to  national  development.  The 
number  of  ]>eople  in  any  country  measures  the  extent  of  its 
producing  power,  and  the  latter,  as  shown  in  a  prior  con- 
nection, is  one  of  the  principal  elements  of  national  weal. 
Moreover,  the  perfection  of  agricultural  enterprises  is 
wholly  dependent  upon  the  extent  to  which  land  is  sub- 


43°         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

divided  among  different  owners  or  occupants.  The  more 
minute  the  division,  the  more  perfect  the  tillage,  and  con- 
sequently the  greater  the  production.  Admit,  for  the  mo- 
ment, that  agricultural  countries  should  devote  themselves 
exclusively,  in  a  relative  sense,  to  the  pursuits  of  tillage, 
and  the  end  cannot  be  so  fully  consummated,  the  amount 
of  agricultural  products  cannot  be  so  greatly  increased,  as  in 
furnishing  such  incentives  for  the  rapid  increase  of  population 
as  the  establishment  of  manufactures  provides,  thereby  re- 
stricting the  extent  of  territory  occupied  by  separate  indi- 
viduals, perfecting  the  method  of  cultivation  and  augment- 
ing the  harvest  returns. 

There  is  another  aspect  to  this  question  of  cities  and 
villages  as  it  inferentially  appears  in  the  preceding  com- 
ment. It  is  the  plea  for  culture.  "God  made  the  country, 
and  man  made  the  town,"  is  a  somewhat  worn  and  hack- 
neyed apothegm.  The  direct  assertion  of  the  secondary 
statement  is  as  faulty  and  indefensible  as  the  inference  pro- 
posed by  the  entire  remark,  that  the  former  abounds  in 
the  greatest  benefits.  We  say  benefits,  and  not  comforts, 
although  the  last  as  well  as  the  first  may  perhaps  be  claimed 
by  the  town  with  a  right  equal  to  that  of  the  country. 
This,  however,  is  immaterial  to  the  point  at  issue.  By 
benefits,  moreover,  is  intended  those  both  personal  and 
national.  The  springs  of  civilization  are  rooted  in  educa- 
tion ;  and  by  the  latter  we  mean  such  education  of  both  the 
head  and  the  hand  as  was  in  a  prior  connection  defined  by 
the  use  of  the  term  acquisition;  or,  in  other  words,  manual 
skill  and  mental  culture.  In  these  are  founded  all  the 
forces  of  science  and  art  which  give  the  world  its  advan- 
tages of  invention,  discovery  and  the  general  adaptation  of 
natural  means  for  desired  ends;  in  short,  national  advance- 
ment. This  education,  acquisition,  relatively  speaking,  is 
incident  to  our  cities  alone.  In  them  naturally  gathers  the 
mind  of  the  people,  and  in  them  are  the  perfect  facilities 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  431 

for  the  education  and  culture  which  advance  the  cause  of 
civilization  and  human  progress  alone  obtained.  The 
neglect  in  a  people  to  diversify  their  industries  to  the  great- 
est possible  extent,  and  thereby  render  the  congregation  of 
its  inhabitants  in  large  cities  impossible,  is  simply  to  record 
a  protest  against  their  education  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
reverse  the  wheels  of  civilization  on  the  other.  This  argu- 
ment must  not  be  construed  into  a  disparagement  of  pop- 
ulating the  country.  Such  a  position  would  be  simply 
absurd.  The  country  has  its  duties  and  responsibilities  no 
less  grave  and  weighty  than  those  of  the  town.  The  two 
go  hand  in  hand,  and  the  permanent  growth  of  one  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  other  is  something  never  to  be  feared. 
That  is  a  matter  controlled  entirely  by  the  force  of  natural 
law,  and  needs  no  conservator  whatever.  The  undue 
desertion  of  the  country  for  the  town  increases  the  advan- 
tages of  the  former  and  diminishes  those  of  the  latter,  and 
vice  versd.  These  extraordinary  advantages  will  not  long 
be  left  to  the  few.  The  law  of  self-interest  is  powerful  and 
supreme,  and  in  the  case  above  noted  the  outgoing  march 
will  meet  the  incoming  train. 

This  immediate  discussion  points  to  certain  direct  con- 
clusions, after  briefly  noticing  the  more  important  of  which 
the  present  sub-subject  will  be  dismissed.  The  first  is  one 
which  inferentially  has  received  a  detailed  exposition  in  a 
prior  connection,  and  in  this  instance,  consequently,  will 
simply  receive  a  mention.  Reference  is  had  to  the  rela- 
tion of  the  foregoing  truths  to  the  topic  of  production. 
Production  is,  for  the  most  part,  wholly  dependent  upon 
the  extent  of  the  education  of  a  people  who  essay  it — upon 
mental  and  manual  acquisition.  One  of  the  chief  ends  of 
the  adoption  of  the  policy  foreshadowed  in  the  present  in- 
vestigation is  to  augment  the  facilities  of  such  education, 
and  thereby  increase  production  and  enhance  the  general 
welfare.  The  operation  of  the  forces  herein  contended  for 


43 2          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

eventuates  in  precisely  these  results,  as  well  as  the  better- 
ment of  individual  condition. 

A  second  conclusion  to  which  we  are  inevitably  drawn 
by  the  past  argument  is  closely  allied  to  the  foregoing :  it 
may  be  regarded,  indeed,  as  a  logical  sequence  thereof. 
It  is  the  simple  alternative  of  progress  or  decay.  There  is 
no  period  of  repose  in  the  life  of  civilization.  It  is  either 
an  advance  or  a  retrograde.  The  moment  a  nation  ceases 
to  educate  its  hand  in  skill  and  its  mind  in  knowledge,  pro- 
duction is  not  only  no  longer  extended,  but  diminished. 
It  cannot  be  otherwise.  Human  achievements,  of  whatever 
sort,  result  from  the  employment  of  human  force.  Stop  the 
supply  of  the  latter,  fail  to  fill  the  vacancies  effected  by  time 
and  death,  and  decline  is  inevitable.  We  are  thus  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  choice  of  civilization  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  if  not  absolute  barbarism,  primitive  nomadism  on  the 
other.  This,  indeed,  although  seemingly  collateral,  is  the 
real  question  involved  in  the  rival  doctrines  of  protection 
and  free  trade.  Its  importance  cannot  be  lost  sight  of  by 
slight.  By  the  side  of  it  the  mere  matter  of  material  wealth 
— and  this,  as  already  shown,  is  wholly  dependent  thereon 
— is  of  little  comparative  importance.  Moneyed  posses- 
sions are  entirely  incident  to  the  education  of  mental  and 
manual  strength.  Their  loss,  at  the  utmost,  carries  in  the 
downfall  none  but  the  former  owners  and  those  who  were 
pecuniarily  interested  in  their  success ;  but  a  reflux  in  the 
tide  of  civilization,  however  local,  makes  its  influence  felt 
in  every  quarter  of  Christendom.  In  that  work  there  is, 
nolens  volcns,  a  universal  partnership  of  the  human  brother- 
hood, which  includes  every  race,  people  and  nationality, 
and  the  misfortune  of  a  single  member  is  the  woe  of  all 
concerned. 

The  collateral  tendency  of  the  two  institutions  of  protec- 
tion and  free  trade,  as  above  defined,  raises  a  question  of 
the  most  momentous  character.  It  cannot  fail  not  only  to 


PROTECTION  AND   FREE    TRADE.  433 

engross  the  attention  of  every  philosophic  mind,  but  it  also 
precludes  the  possibility  of  silence  among  the  supporters  of 
Christianity  in  general.  It  resolves  itself  into  the  simple 
alternative  of  whether  particular  countries,  and  conse- 
quently the  world,  shall  still  join  in  the  onward  inarch  of 
human  progress,  educate  their  intellect,  perfect  their  skill 
in  productive  labor,  develop  their  natural  resources  and 
unfold  the  mysteries  of  science,  or  whether  they  shall,  per- 
haps slowly  yet  surely,  return  to  the  enervating  influences 
of  a  pastoral  life  and  the  still  more  aimless  pursuits  of  the 
chase.  Protection,  of  course,  does  not  necessarily  attach 
to  all  countries,  nor  to  any  country,  except  under  certain 
conditions.  Those  conditions  have  been  fully  and  fairly 
defined  in  a  prior  connection.  Repetition  thereof  will  not 
be  made,  but  the  same  must  be  remembered  to  prevent  a 
misconstruction  of  the  utterance  that  both  in  its  direct  anil 
collateral  tendencies  the  development  of  latent,  hidden  re- 
sources, the  increase  of  the  material  wealth  of  both  the  na- 
tion and  the  individual,  the  substitution  of  skilled  for  rude 
labor,  the  education  of  the  intellect,  the  exploration  of  sci- 
ence, the  perfection  and  ennoblement  of  art,  the  provision 
of  motor-power  for  the  cause  of  civilization,  and  the  ad- 
vancement of  a  common  Christianity,  are  the  end  and  aim 
of  that  system  of  economic  law  which,  as  it  opposes  progress 
to  decay,  has  been  so  fittingly  styled  protection. 

V.  THE  PROPER  POLICY  FOR  THE  UNITED  STATES. 
The  discussion  of  this  sub-subject  consists  in  a  simple 
application  of  the  principles  hereinl>efore  set  forth.  It  is 
most  appropriately  introduced  by  a  brief  statement  of  the 
absolute  and  relative  position  of  this  country.  In  reference 
to  the  first,  as  connected  with  the  intelligence  of  its  inhab- 
itants, it  possesses  the  largest  extent  of  territory  of  any  na- 
tion upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  Hut  about  one-fourth  of 
this  entire  domain  has  Inren  developed  by  the  hand  of  in- 

37  T 


434          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

dustry.  The  balance  of  it,  comparatively  speaking,  is  an 
utter  stranger  to  everything  but  the  annual  visit  of  the  sea- 
sons and  the  presence  of  the  herds  which  wildly  roam  over 
its  luxuriant  surface.  Unknown  to  all  but  the  curious  trav- 
eler, and  the  savage  who  has  sought  to  divorce  himself 
from  civilization  in  its  solitude,  it  sleeps,  as  left  by  the 
hand  of  Nature,  in  total  ignorance  of  the  existence  of  man. 
The  natural  resources  of  this  vast  territorial  area  are  of  the 
most  diversified  character.  Its  soil  has  capacity  for  the 
unrivaled  production  of  certain  agricultural  staples ;  metal- 
lic ores  of  almost  every  description  lie  hid  beneath  its 
bo§om ;  forests  of  timber  shoot  heavenward  from  its  moun- 
tains ;  indigenous  fruits  voluntarily  ripen  in  its  sunny  val- 
leys; boisterous  brooks  waste  their  strength  in  dancing 
among  its  hills ;  and  mighty  rivers  on  all  sides  force  an 
outlet  to  the  different  gates  of  the  sea.  We  are  a  people, 
moreover,  who  assume  to  govern  ourselves.  Our  form  of 
government  and  our  institutions  are  wholly  and  unquali- 
fiedly republican.  Relative  liberty  is  granted  to  all,  and 
neither  the  mind  nor  the  body  is  subjected  to  slavery. 
Vocations  are  in  no  respect  exclusive.  Pursuits  which  are 
lawful  to  one  the  masses  may  legitimately  follow,  and  the 
means  of  accession  thereto  are  uniform  and  easily  available. 
Our  only  title  of  nobility  is  intelligence,  and  the  avenues 
to  personal  distinction  and  honor  are  open  to  any  who  have 
the  ability  and  diligence  to  essay  their  passage.  This  uni- 
versality of  character  and  opportunity,  coupled  with  the 
mobility  of  our  institutions,  attracts  to  our  shores  the  op- 
pressed and  unfortunate  of  every  race  and  country.  The 
name  of  America,  indeed,  is  a  magnet  which  draws  to  itself 
the  heterogeneous  and  penniless  masses  of  the  European 
and  of  Eastern  countries.  Our  population,  by  reason 
thereof,  is  increasing  with  unprecedented  rapidity,  and  the 
new  accessions  are  of  a  character  who  must  live  by  the  re- 
turns of  labor  and  not  of  capital.  Our  country,  moreover, 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  435 

is  still  in  its  infancy,  and  is  characterized  with  much  of  the 
weakness  which  is  not  incident  to  manhood.  The  educa- 
tion of  our  labor  is  not  yet  perfected,  our  intellect  is  not 
yet  matured,  and  our  explorations  of  science  and  appropri- 
ations of  art  are  not  fully  extended. 

Thus  much  for  our  absolute  status.  In  reference  to  our  rela- 
tive condition,  we  are  placed  in  competition,  in  the  commer- 
cial world,  with  rivals  who  were  five  hundred  years  old  at  the 
time  of  our  birth — with  rivals  who  have  availed  themselves  of 
the  advantages  of  this  long  experience,  and  whose  productive 
sinews  are  toughened  by  the  uses  and  hardships  of  checkered 
age.  We  have  just  emerged,  moreover,  from  the  convulsions 
and  horrors  of  a  civil  war  more  stupendous  in  proportions 
than  any  which  exists  in  the  memory  of  man.  This  terrible 
struggle  cost  us,  as  a  whole  people,  to  say  nothing  of  life, 
nearly  ten  thousand  millions  of  treasure.  Our  obligations 
for  nearly  two  thousand  five  hundred  millions  are  still  in 
circulation,  and  in  a  great  measure  in  the  hands  of  foreign 
capitalists.  Our  traditional  policy  refutes  the  idea  of  a 
permanent  public  debt,  and  our  national  prosperity  renders 
the  payment  of  the  present  one  imperative. 

Considering  our  immense  landed  possessions,  the  argu- 
ment of  free  trade  points  directly,  comparatively  speaking, 
to  the  exclusive  pursuit  of  agriculture  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  There  is  no  escape  from  this  conclusion. 
With  our  markets  open  to  foreign  venders  of  factured 
wares,  any  attempt  at  production  of  the  same  on  our  part 
is  useless,  for  the  superior  facilities  of  our  competitors,  re- 
sulting from  the  element  of  age,  enable  them  to  undersell 
us  and  drive  our  factured  products  from  existence.  The 
same  is  true,  in  every  resjx;ct,  in  reference  to  our  mining 
industries.  Our  labor  is  still  educating  itself  in  the  *kill 
requisite  to  follow  these  pursuits  as  advantageously  as  that 
of  older  rivals,  which  fact,  coupled  with  the  initiatory  ex- 
pense attendant  upon  the  inauguration  of  any  enterprise 


l$  THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

whatever,  puts  an  effectual  check  upon  the  working  of  our 
raw  mineral  wealth  into  salable  commodities  with  the  sys- 
tem of  free  trade  in  force.  The  truth  of  the  statement 
cannot  be  denied.  In  respect  to  origin,  there  are  only 
three  kinds  of  raw  material — namely,  the  products  of  land, 
mines  and  fisheries.  A  reign  of  free  trade  restricts  our 
producing  power  within  the  limits  of  the  first  and  last,  and 
principally  those  of  the  former.  The  result  of  thus  con- 
fining our  labor  within  the  narrow  compass  of  agricultural 
industry  needs  no  description.  The  same,  although  infer- 
entially  yet  fully,  appeared  in  the  discussion  of  the  next 
preceding  sub-subject.  Further  statement  thereof  will  not 
be  suffered.  Suffice  it  to  say,  our  country  would  be  made 
up  of  small  villages  and  towns  to  the  exclusion  of  cities, 
our  education  of  both  labor  and  intellect  would  deteriorate, 
and  we  should  slowly  yet  fatally  recede  to  the  primordial 
condition  of  the  pastoral  tribes  of  the  Eastern  World. 

There  is  an  argument  suggested  in  this  connection  in 
favor  of  free  trade  which,  although  indefensible,  is  suffi- 
ciently specious  to  provoke  a  reply.  It  is  this.  The  sup- 
porters of  the  theory  urge  that  as  the  adoption  of  their 
system  would  give  us  both  cheaper  raw  material  and 
factured  goods,  the  less  cost  of  the  former  and  the  dimi- 
nution of  living  expenses,  with  its  consequent  reduction  of 
the  price  of  labor  induced  by  the  latter,  would  enable  us  to 
successfully  compete  with  our  foreign  rivals  in  manufac- 
turing pursuits ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  reduction  in  the 
cost  of  the  component  parts  of  factured  wares,  labor  and 
raw  material,  under  a  free  trade  system,  would  equalize  our 
facturing  capacity  with  that  of  other  countries.  Not  so. 
The  claimants  omit  one  very  important  element  from  the 
discussion — the  difference  between  the  abstract  price  of 
American  and  foreign  labor.  The  question  presents  the 
simple  alternative  of  the  degradation  or  ennoblement  of 
our  laboring  classes.  England  feeds  her  workmen  upon 


PROTECTION  AXD  FREE    TRADE.  437 

black  bread  and  sour  beer,  and  her  pauper  list  not  only 
numbers  a  million  and  a  half  of  souls,  but  is  constantly  on 
the  increase.  The  United  States  provide  their  laboring 
classes  with  wholesome  food,  proper  covering,  suitable 
shelter  and  means  to  educate  both  themselves  and  theii 
children,  and  pauperism  fails  of  annual  growth.  And 
instead  of  receding  from  that  line  of  action,  they  propose 
to  advance  beyond  it,  believing  not  only  that  their  own 
material  and  national  greatness  is  wrapped  in  the  policy, 
but  also  the  cause  of  civilization  and  Christianity  in  gene- 
ral. This  difference  between  the  abstract  price  of  foreign 
and  American  labor  is  too  great  to  be  overcome  by  the 
adoption  of  free  trade.  The  average  of  such  difference, 
making  due  allowance  for  the  cheapness  of  living  expenses 
in  Europe  as  compared  with  America,  is  fully  thirty,  and 
the  average  reduction  to  us  in  the  cost  of  labor  and  raw 
material  incident  to  a  free  trade  policy  ranges  only  from 
ten  to  twenty  per  cent. 

The  fact  is  notorious  to  any  intelligent  mind  that  in  ad- 
vocating a  free  trade  policy  the  case  of  England  is  cited  as 
indisputable  authority  to  support  the  plea.  That  country  is 
our  principal  competitor  in  the  commercial  world,  and  as 
the  citation  above  named  is  pertinent,  so  may  the  status  and 
exigencies  of  the  two  nations  be  very  properly  contrasted. 
The  territorial  extent  of  England,  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  United  States,  is  meagre  in  the  extreme.  The  waters 
of  the  ocean  wash  every  rood  of  her  outer  borders,  and 
fourteen  hours'  land  carriage  will  place  the  products  of  her 
most  interior  industry  upon  her  docks  for  shipment.  A 
landed  aristocracy  is  one  of  the  pet  features  of  her  govern- 
mental policy.  Fifty  thousand  individuals  own  her  entire 
territory  in  fee  simple,  and  the  absolute  (or  even  qualified) 
ownership  of  land — yea  more,  its  occupancy  even — by  any 
of  her  laboring  classes  is  nothing  less  than  an  anomaly. 
This  small  extent  of  area,  coupled  with  the  infrcquency  of 
37  • 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

its  subdivision,  has  driven  her  producing  power  almost  ex- 
clusively to  the  pursuit  of  manufactures.  Her  government 
is  a  constitutional  monarchy,  and  although,  in  some  respects, 
one  of  the  most  perfect,  both  in  form  and  theory,  which 
the  experience  of  past  ages  has  ever  suggested,  it  denies,  to 
a  very  great  extent,  the  advancement  of  her  lower  and 
middle  classes.  She  depends  partially  upon  the  existence 
of  a  large  public  debt  to  secure  the  continuance  of  her 
present  form  of  government.  For  five  hundred  years  has 
she  profited  by  the  results  of  invention  and  the  explorations 
of  science ;  the  education  of  her  labor  is  the  most  perfect 
of  any  in  Christendom,  and  the  same,  with  the  exception  of 
Germany,  is  true  of  her  intellect.  From  1651  to  1845  sne 
shielded  her  industrial  pursuits  with  the  most  rigid  system 
of  protection  which  the  history  of  economic  legislation 
has  ever  presented,  and  not  until  she  had  so  perfected  her 
facilities  in  that  direction  that  she  had  nothing  to  fear  from 
unrestricted  traffic  did  she  adopt  the  opposing  policy  of 
free  trade.  England  stands,  to-day,  the  oldest  and  most 
emphatic  exponent  of  the  work  of  protection  throughout 
the  world. 

Leaving  this  general,  inferential  contrast,  a  more  direct 
one  will  now  be  considered.  The  producing  power  of  the 
United  States  is  in  a  great  measure,  by  reason  of  its  vast 
territorial  resources,  devoted  to  the  production  of  raw  ma- 
terial. That  of  England,  on  the  other  hand,  owing  to  its 
restricted  area,  is  almost  exclusively  directed  to  the  facture 
of  wares.  Those  of  our  raw  products  for  which  England 
is  a  customer  are  corn,  cotton  and  tobacco,  while,  by  virtue 
of  the  non-development  of  our  facturing  power,  we  pur- 
chase the  factured  goods  of  England  in  return.  Attention 
is  drawn  to  this  point  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  an  argu- 
ment of  the  free  trade  theorists  that  the  absence  of  this 
policy  restricts  our  exportation  of  these  staples.  The  posi- 
tion was  shown  to  be  indefensible  by  an  examination  of 


PROTECTION  AND   FREE    TRADE.  439 

general  principles  in  the  discussion  of  the  third  sub-subject 
of  this  chapter.  The  main  ground  will  not  be  re-examined, 
showing  that  protection  does  not  reduce  the  aggregate 
amount  of  exports,  but  the  present  comment  will  be  con- 
fined to  the  effect  of  the  policy  upon  the  sale  of  the  three 
products  above  mentioned.  They  constitute,  it  is  true,  a 
very  large  portion  of  our  exportable  commodities,  and  the 
topic  is  consequently  an  important  one.  Now,  corn,  cotton 
and  tobacco,  at  least  the  two  former,  the  United  States,  on 
account  of  territorial  and  climatic  status,  can  produce  with 
greater  facility  and  in  greater  abundance  than  any  other 
country.  The  cotton  crop  of  the  United  States,  in  fact,  is 
two-thirds  of  that  of  the  entire  world.  Britain,  however, 
comparatively  speaking,  in  the  absence  of  the  peculiar 
status  above  stated,  can  produce  them  only  in  a  very  limited 
degree.  She  must  come  to  us,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
for  these  staples,  whether  we  govern  ourselves  by  protection 
or  free  trade.  Not  so  in  reference  to  the  factured  wares  we 
purchase  of  England.  We  have  every  latent  facility  for 
this  production  which  England  has,  and  it  only  requires 
development  to  render  us  wholly  independent  of  her  in 
respect  to  our  supply  therewith.  We  may  by  a  system  of 
protection  accomplish  that  result,  and  not  for  a  moment 
jeopardize  the  extent  of  our  export  trade  in  the  products 
above  named.  Natural  laws  render  the  opposite  results 
entirely  impossible,  and  make  us  masters  of  the  situation. 

It  is  directly  at  this  point  that  not  only  the  reason  of 
England's  advocacy  of  free  trade  upon  general  principles, 
but  also  that  of  her  intense  desire  to  see  it  adopted  in  this 
and  other  countries,  is  made  apparent.  Her  restricted  ter- 
ritorial area  has  driven  her  almost  exclusively  to  facturing 
pursuits,  and  she  has  naturally  enough  aimed  to  distance 
all  competitors  therein.  For  th^'^Jbnartment  of  this  end 
she  has  not  only  per  fee  ted  the  e*  aLrtf  ion  of  her  labor  by 
three  hundred  years  of  experin  ii^and  two  hundred  years 


440         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

of  rigid  protection,  but  also  reduced  the  cost  of  her  labor 
to  the  lowest  possible  minimum  in  the  criminally  scanty 
wages  she  pays  her  laboring  classes.  By  these  expedients 
she  is  enabled  to  place  factured  goods  in  the  market  at  a 
lower  price  than  any  other  country.  She  has  nothing  to 
fear  from  competition,  and  therefore  argues  free  trade  for 
her  economic  policy ;  she  desires  to  sell  all  the  goods  she 
can,  and  therefore  advocates  the  system  as  the  only  proper 
policy  for  other  countries.  Nations,  like  individuals,  adopt 
particular  expedients  for  their  own  and  not  for  others'  good. 
There  is  no  less  selfishness  in  public  than  in  private  policy. 
England  advocates  free  trade  as  the  only  proper  economic  sys- 
tem for  universal  adoption  simply  because,  under  existing  cir- 
cumstances, it  is  the  most  advantageous  for  her  to  follow,  and 
not  because  she  ever  has  shown  or  can  show  that  it  is  best  and 
wisest  for  all  Christendom.  The  attempt  to  make  the  case 
of  England  a  criterion  for  other  countries,. between  her  and 
whom  there  is  not  the  slightest  analogy  in  respect  to  age, 
education,  territorial  area  and  treatment  of  the  laboring 
classes,  is  an  abuse  of  logic  and  an  insult  to  reason. 

There  is  a  collateral  fact  suggested  at  this  juncture  which 
is  peculiarly  pertinent  to  the  present  discussion.  England 
assigns  the  wretched  condition  of  her  laboring  classes  to 
over-population,  if  such  a  term  may  be  suffered.  It  is  the 
Malthusian  argument  that  the  world,  in  time,  will  be  peo- 
pled beyond  its  capacity — that  God  is  going  to  glut  His 
creation  with  humanity — and  is  very  acceptable  to  England 
because  it  absolves  her  from  a  terrible  responsibility.  There 
is,  however,  a  reason  for  the  deplorable  status  of  her  mill- 
operatives  behind  all  this  which  is  less  insulting  to  Omnip- 
otence and  more  easy  of  appreciation.  England  has  aimed 
not  only  to  control  the  commerce,  but  also  to  make  her  fac- 
turing  marts  the  dT  H^sive  market  of  the  world  for  factured 


wares.     Down  to  tnes/"  "V'o  of  the  present  century,  or  about 
abanv.  '-3    protection  (1845),  ner  ambi- 


the  time  when  she  ^^^ 

mdk 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  44! 

tion  was  successful,  for  not  till  then  did  the  Western  World 
overtake  her  in  the  race  of  civilization.  It  was  simply  to 
distance  this  dangerous  rival  that  she  invited  Christendom 
to  the  feast  of  unrestricted  traffic  and  removed  the  customs 
barriers  from  her  ports  of  entry.  For  reasons  before  stated 
she  had  nothing  to  fear  from  competition,  and  the  prospect- 
ive curtailment  of  her  list  of  customers  urged  her  not  only 
to  adopt  the  policy  for  herself  as  an  attraction  to  her  sell- 
ing buyers,  but  to  advocate  it  to  her  neighbors,  that  in 
their  ports  she  might  sell  her  goods.  The  motor-power 
which  enabled  England  to  still  maintain  her  ascendency  in 
1845  a8  tne  supply-store  of  the  world  by  the  adoption  of 
free  trade,  was  the  continued  degradation  of  her  labor.  The 
success  of  free  trade  with  England — if  indeed  it  may  be 
called  a  success — is  wholly  based  upon  the  miserable  pov- 
erty of  her  lower  laboring  classes ;  and  herein,  rather  than 
in  the  theory  of  Malthus,  lies  the  secret  of  their  misfortunes. 
It  is  a  useless  battle.  England  struggles  not  against  the 
power  and  skill  of  human  competition,  but  against  the  prog- 
ress of  civilization  and  the  force  of  natural  law.  She  can 
be  a  partial  but  not  an  exclusive  supply-store  for  factured 
wares.  The  fates  are  against  her,  and  her  facturing  indus- 
tries cannot  much  longer  increase  their  scope,  if  they  can 
even  maintain  their  present  status.  The  magnitude  of  any 
enterprise  is  measured  by  the  versatility  of  others  which  sur- 
round it,  and  this  last,  in  a  great  degree,  by  immediate  terri- 
torial area.  Factures  of  hand  or  machinery  will  best  flou- 
rish by  the  side  of  extended  agriculture,  and  vice  versa. 
The  one  makes  a  market  for  the  other,  and  the  greater  the 
extent  of  territory,  if  characterized  with  natural  advantages 
and  the  same  are  properly  developed,  the  greater  the  pros- 
perity of  both ;  and  for  the  same  reason  the  more  versatile 
the  pursuits  the  more  extended  their  compass.  England, 
consequently,  must  not  assume  an  ability  to  supply  the 
world  with  factured  goods.  Her  immediate  limited  area 

T  2 


442         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

renders  it  impossible,  and  the  ultimate  relative  extent  of 
her  capacity  in  this  direction  will  be  measured  by  the  de- 
gree to  which  the  United  States  and  other  countries  pos- 
sessed of  similar  natural  advantages  develop  and  perfect  the 
same.  There  is  room  and  opportunity  for  England's  starv- 
ing poor  in  other  localities,  and  therein  they  will  look  in 
the  future  for  relief. 

There  is  another  point  to  be  considered  before  this  argu- 
ment of  contrast  is  dismissed,  and  it  is  the  vehicle  of  a  fact 
which  throws  around  English  industry  the  shield  of  protec- 
tion in  as  great  a  degree  as  though  a  protective  enactment 
occupied  a  place  upon  England's  statute-book.  It  is  the 
difference  which  exists  in  the  cost  of  transportation  of  the 
peculiar  products  of  the  respective  countries.  Remember- 
ing that  the  cost  of  transportation  is  a  component  part  of 
the  cost  of  commodities  to  their  vender,  and  consequently 
a  factor  of  the  market  price  to  the  buyer,  the  advantage  of 
England  in  this  respect  will  be  made  clearly  apparent  by 
means  of  a  simple  statement  of  patent  facts.  The  exports 
of  the  United  States,  as  before  remarked,  consist,  for  the 
most  part,  of  raw  material  which  is  not  only  bulky,  but, 
comparatively  speaking,  of  small  moneyed  value.  Our 
territory  is  so  vast  in  extent  that  these  exports  are  placed 
upon  our  docks  for  shipment  only  by  means  of  a  long  and 
expensive  land- carriage,  and  their  enormous  bulk  renders 
such  land-  and  subsequent  water-carriage  extremely  expen- 
sive. The  cost  of  transportation  of  our  exports  to  Euro- 
pean ports,  in  short,  forms,  upon  an  average,  about  fifty 
per  cent,  of  their  market  price.  England,  on  the  other 
hand,  exports,  relatively  speaking,  scarcely  anything  but 
factured  goods,  which  are  not  only  capable  of  shipment  in 
a  very  small  compass,  but  are  possessed  of  great  moneyed 
value.  Her  facturing  marts,  moreover,  are,  at  the  farthest, 
but  a  few  hours  distant  from  her  ocean-docks,  so  that  the 
cost  of  land-carriage  for  her  exports  is  next  to  nothing. 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  443 

The  cost  of  transportation  of  her  exported  commodities,  in 
fact,  is  not,  upon  an  average,  above  ten  per  cent,  of  their 
actual  value.  The  force  of  the  foregoing  may  perhaps  be 
better  appreciated  by  a  statement  of  the  fact  that  it  costs  as 
much  to  place  a  bushel  of  American  corn,  worth  fifty  cents, 
upon  the  docks  of  Liverpool,  as  it  does  a  yard  of  English 
broadcloth,  worth  five  dollars,  upon  the  wharf  at  New 
York.  It  is  impossible  for  England  to  secure  a  system  of 
protection  more  perfect,  so  far  as  the  United  States  are  con- 
cerned, than  is  here  accorded  her. 

To  conclude  this  contrast  of  the  status  of  the  two  coun- 
tries, the  attempt  to  justify  free  trade  as  the  proper  economic 
policy  for  the  United  States  by  analogous  reasoning  from 
an  English  stand-point  is  wholly  ephemeral.  There  is 
not,  on  the  whole,  the  slightest  analogy  between  their  re- 
spective conditions.  Our  status  is  much  more  like  that  of 
India,  even,  than  of  England  or  Belgium,  to  whom  the  sup- 
porters of  free  trade  are  so  prone  to  point  for  proof  of  its 
success.  If  unrestricted  traffic  should  be  adopted  as  the 
immediate  policy  of  our  Government,  and  the  same  adhered 
to,  we  should  lapse  into  the  almost  exclusive  pursuit  of  till- 
age, and  place  the  followers  thereof  upon  the  same  deplora- 
ble basis  as  the  laboring  classes  of  Great  Britain.  Ireland, 
indeed,  owes  her  past  distress  of  famines  almost  wholly  to 
the  free  trade  laws  of  the  English  realm.  The  ridiculously 
insignificant  remuneration  which  the  labor  of  her  peasantry 
received,  induced  by  the  free  trade  policy  of  England,  and 
not  a  scarcity  of  provisions,  was  the  cause  of  every  famine 
which  has  visited  that  unhappy  people.  In  every  instance 
thereof,  the  cereal  markets  of  this  country  were  fully  stocked 
for  foreign  buyers,  and  the  charity  of  our  people  made  them 
accessible  without  money  and  without  price. 

There  are  three  other  points  worthy  of  a  passing  notice, 
at  least,  before  the  present  chapter  shall  be  concluded. 
And,  first,  the  labor  of  a  nation  which  has  been  educated 


444         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

above  the  mere  vocation  of  agricultural  pursuits — which 
end  is  gained  by  protection — is  never  compelled  to  raise 
the  mortifying  flag  of  pauperism  and  confess  its  inability  to 
take  care  of  itself.  Skilled  labor  is  always  independent. 
Somewhere  in  the  world  it  is  always  in  demand,  and  can 
ever  find  employment.  History  furnishes  many  forcible 
examples  of  the  truth  of  the  foregoing,  and  that  which 
Lucca  records  can  never  be  cited  too  often.  In  1310  a 
change  of  governmental  policy  exiled  nine  hundred  families 
therefrom.  In  this  unhappy  number  thirty-one  families 
were  skilled  in  the  art  of  silk  manufacture,  and  prevailed 
upon  the  authorities  of  Venice  to  allow  them  to  remain 
therein  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  that  industry  under 
government  auspices.  Second,  it  is  the  interest,  and  con- 
sequently the  duty,  of  every  country  to  approximate  as 
closely  as  possible  to  a  state  of  perfect  independence  of 
other  nations.  In  countries  of  large  territorial  area  and 
diversified  natural  advantages  this  is  peculiarly  advantage- 
ous, for  in  the  event  of  war  such  a  status  affords  a  moral 
power  which  the  artificial  strength  of  armies  and  navies  is 
powerless  to  supply.  And,  third  (to  be  more  fully  noticed 
in  the  next  succeeding  chapter),  we  have  a  debt  to  pay,  and 
only  either  by  a  protective  tariff  or  internal  taxes  are  the 
means  to  be  possessed  for  its  cancellation. 

As  announced  in  the  outset,  the  discussion  embraced  by 
the  present  chapter  has  only  dealt  with  general  principles, 
and  the  application  thereof  to  the  peculiar  exigencies  of  this 
country.  It  was  not  intended  to  grasp  the  specific  instances 
to  which,  for  the  welfare  of  the  United  States,  one  or  the 
other  of  the  opposing  doctrines  should  attach.  That  is  the 
work  of  the  next  succeeding  chapter. 

The  conclusions  which  are  suggested  by  the  foregoing 
investigation  are  seemingly  indisputable.  With  our  large 
extent  of  territory,  rich  in  its  undeveloped  and  unapplied 
resources  of  hidden  wealth  and  water-power,  coupled,  in  all 


PROTECTION  AND  FREE    TRADE.  445 

cases,  with  the  interest,  and  in  most  instances  the  necessity, 
of  still  further  perfecting  the  education  of  our  labor — of 
maintaining,  if  not  advancing,  the  present  status  of  our 
laboring  classes — of  augmenting  the  scope  of  our  produ- 
cing power — of  keeping  open  the  avenues  of  industry  in  as 
many  directions  as  possible,  so  that  our  annual  tide  of  im- 
migration shall  become  an  assistance  and  not  a  burden — of 
fortifying  ourselves  against  the  chances  and  contingencies 
of  war,  and  of  redeeming  our  present  financial  obligations, 
— the  wisest  and  most  expedient  economic  policy  for  this 
country  to  pursue  until  it  has  reached  a  period  of  mature 
age,  whether  it  be  twenty  or  fifty  years  distant,  is  to  equalize 
with  that  of  older  rivals  the  status  of  those  of  our  indus- 
tries which  natural  or  artificial  causes  have  placed  in  un- 
equal competition  therewith,  by  giving  them  both  the  defence 
and  assistance  of  a  temperate,  uniform  system  of  protec- 
tion. The  contrary  would  not  only  be  a  waste  of  inherent 
strength,  but  a  weight  upon  the  progress  of  civilization. 


CHAPTER    II. 

TARIFFS. 

The  Scope  of  the  Discussion — It  will  not  Descend  to  Details,  but  state 
Principles  by  which  the  Same  may  l>e  Reached — History  of  Tariff 
Legislation  in  the  United  States — The  Tariff  of  1789 — A  Protective 
Measure — Its  Cause  and  Origin — Amendments  thereof — Alexander 
Hamilton  and  James  Madison  upon  the  Policy — The  Tariff  of  1816 
—  Induced  by  the  Changed  Status  of  Europe  and  America — Inade- 
quate— The  General  Distress  which  followed — The  Tariff  of  1824 — 
Strongly  Protective — Its  Cause  and  Origin — A  Success — Clay  and 
\Vel>ster  the  M  aster-spirits  of  the  Conflict — The  Claim  of  Locality — 
The  Tariff  of  1828— A  Modification  of  the  one  of  1824 — The  Com- 
promise Tariff  of  1833 — Protection  Abandoned — Its  Cause  and 
Origin — South  Carolina — Clay  the  Mover  of  the  Scheme — Webster 
its  Opponent — Position*  of  the  two  Reversed — From  1833  to  1842 
31 


446         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Free  Trade  and  Disaster  Ruled  the  Country — The  Tariff  of  1842 — 
Protection  Resumed — Modified  in  1846— Prosperity  Followed — The 
Tariff  of  1857 — Protection  again  Abandoned — The  Forerunner  of 
General  Distress— The  Tariff  of  1861 — Protection  Reinstated — Why? 
— Protection  for  the  United  States  Defended — Our  Import  and  Export 
Trade  Reviewed — The  Results  of  Tariff  Legislation  in  this  Country 
— The  Case  of  Labor,  Agriculture  and  Cotton — The  Classes  of 
Articles  to  which  a  Protective  Tariff  should  Attach — The  Principle 
Stated  which  here  Governs — The  Case  of  Raw  Materials — Iron 
requires  Protection — Coal  and  Wool  do  not — Lumber  for  Special 
Reasons  should  not  have  it — The  Extent  to  which  a  Protective  Im- 
post should  be  Laid — The  Same  fully  examined. 

r  I  "HE  task  assigned  to  the  present  chapter  will  be  con- 
.!_  fined  within  very  narrow  limits.  Extended  discussion 
upon  the  above-entitled  subject,  in  the  light  of  the  next 
preceding  one,  is  indeed  wholly  unnecessary.  The  exami- 
nation of  the  joint  topic  of  Protection  and  Free  Trade  was 
based  entirely  upon  general  principles,  and  concluded  with 
an  exposition  of  the  proper  policy  for  the  United  States  to 
pursue.  The  work  of  this  immediate  investigation  is  to 
define  the  limits  of  the  application  of  such  a  policy — to 
state  in  detail  the  objects  upon  which  it  should  lay  its  hand. 
The  topics  of  both  chapters  are  mere  subdivisions  of  one 
general  subject.  They  were  separated  by  the  author  in  his 
treatment  thereof  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  confusion, 
and  of  obtaining  in  toto  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  protection  and  free  trade  before 
essaying  to  apply  these  laws  for  the  attainment  of  practical 
ends.  It  asserts  itself  to  be  the  better  method,  for  the 
reasons — if  we  may  reduce  them  to  a  close  and  somewhat 
metaphorical  expression — that  theory  properly  comes  before 
practice,  science  before  art,  and  that,  the  former  having 
been  mastered,  the  latter  will  require  but  a  little  time  for 
the  purpose  of  making  our  acquaintance. 

As  to  the  exact  scope  of  the  present  chapter,  the  reader 
must  not,  in  the  outset,  be  misled  by  the  prior  remark  that 


TARIFFS.  447 

its  work  "  is  to  define  the  limit  of  the  application  of  such 
a  policy,  to  state  in  detail  the  objects  upon  which  it  should 
lay  its  hand."  This  proposition  must  not  be  assumed  to 
convey  the  intendment  that  all  the  objects  upon  which  a 
tariff  should  seize,  together  with  the  exact  extent  to  which 
it  should  essay  to  control  them,  will  be  separately  stated  in 
this  discussion.  Such  a  course  would  be  the  draft  of  a  bill 
for  the  action  of  legislation,  and  not  the  elucidation  of 
principles  by  which  legislation  may  be  guided.  It  is  the 
latter,  and  not  the  former,  which  alone  is  here  intended,  or 
even  necessary ;  and  this  end  will  be  accomplished  by  a 
statement  of  the  classes  of  objects  to  which  a  tariff  should 
properly  attach,  coupled  with  a  general  rule  to  serve  as  an 
index  of  the  precise  limit  to  which  it  should  operate  thereon. 
There  is  a  maxim  of  law  no  less  salutary  for  economic  than 
legal  discussion — namely,  Quod  est  ccrtum  certum  potest — 
"that  is  certain  which  may  be  rendered  certain,"  that  is, 
by  mer£  ministerial  as  distinguished  from  discretionary 
action.  It  is  by  this  rule,  owing  to  the  fullness  of  the  next 
preceding  chapter,  that  we  shall  in  this  instance  more  than 
usually  adhere. 

With  these  preliminary  observations  the  main  topic  will 
now  be  proceeded  with  in  the  following  order : 

I.  History  of  Tariff  Legislation  in  this  Country; 

II.  The  Classes  of  Articles  to  which  a  Tariff  should 
Attach  ; 

III.  The  Extent  to  which  a  Protective  Impost  should  be 
Laid. 

I.  HISTORY  OF  TARIFF  LEGISLATION  IN  THIS  COUNTRY. 

The  object  of  this  immediate  comment  is  twofold — 
namely,  a  concise,  chronological  statement  of  the  several 
tariff  measures  which  have  been  adopted  by  the  United 
States,  and  the  demonstration  that  such  measures  have 
always  proved  a  benefit  to  the  community — that  their  ab- 


448          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

sence  has  ever  been  the  concomitant  of  extended  and 
almost  universal  distress.  For  this  purpose  a  running  rec- 
ord, so  to  speak,  will  first  be  made  of  the  economic  legisla- 
tion of  the  country  in  this  direction,  accompanied  by  gen- 
eral statements  of  its  condition  attendant  upon  such  a 
course  ;  after  which  a  brief  and  somewhat  detailed  review 
of  intermediate  and  collateral  events  connected  with  our 
history  and  incident  to  the  respective  tariff  measures  will 
be  made,  to  substantiate  the  claim  above  advanced,  that 
protection  has  always  promoted  the  welfare  of  the  Ameri- 
can republic. 

Within  three  days  after  the  assembling  of  the  first  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  the  discussion  of  the  proper 
economic  policy  for  the  Government  was  inaugurated,  and 
has  ever  since  been  continued.  The  total  disagreement  of 
the  most  eminent  minds  of  the  country  thereon,  through 
every  stage  of  our  national  existence,  pointedly  sustains  the 
position  hereinbefore  advanced,  that  Political  Ecopomy  is 
not  a  science — that  it  is  wholly  dependent  upon  the  pecu- 
liar conditions  of  every  state  or  nation.  The  discussion 
above  noted  eventuated  in  the  adoption  (July  4,  1789) 
of  the  first  tariff  act  placed  upon  the  statute-book  of  the 
then  infant  republic.  It  bears  the  following  preamble : 
"Whereas,  it  is  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  Govern- 
ment, for  the  discharge  of  the  debts  of  the  United  States 
and  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  manufactures  that 
duties  be  laid,"  etc.  The  origin  of  this  species  of  legisla- 
tion is  unclouded  with  mystery.  It  had  its  birth  in  the 
status  of  things  consequent  upon  the  stern  fortunes  of  war. 
The  American  Revolution  had  barred  the  people  of  the 
Colonies  from  making  further  imports  from  the  mother- 
country  of  many  of  the  necessaries  of  their  peculiar  life, 
such  as  cloths,  utensils  of  agriculture  and  mechanics,  etc. 
etc.,  and  dire  necessity  had  forced  their  facture  upon  them- 
selves. Throughout  nearly  all  of  the  few  pioneer  States 


TARIFFS.  449 

which  then  nestled  upon  the  Atlantic  seaboard  embryo 
works  for  the  facture  of  various  wares  like  those  above 
named  had  been  established.  The  war  concluded  and 
peace  restored,  the  further  existence  of  these  youthful  in- 
dustries was  unqualifiedly  doomed  by  the  prospective  re- 
newal of  extended  shipments  to  our  ports  of  foreign  wares 
similar  to  those  here  factured  at  a  lower  price.  The  inevi- 
table result  plainly  foreshadowed  itself — the  forced  pursu- 
ance of  agriculture  by  the  masses,  and  the  consequent  stay 
of  national  advancement.  To  avert  this  calamity,  the  act 
above  mentioned  was  devised,  but  not  without  serious 
and  able  opposition.  Mr.  Hartley  of  Pennsylvania  was  its 
chief  champion,  and  Mr.  Madison  of  Virginia  its  strong 
antagonist.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  latter  State  had 
become  the  principal  mart  for  the  exportation  of  tobacco, 
and  protested  against  paying  the  former  more  for  factured 
wares  than  they  could  be  purchased  for  in  Europe.  The 
argument,  not  only  in  itself  untrue,  was  local  and  not 
national,  and  the  comparative  irrelevancy  of  such  local 
claims,  for  the  most  part,  to  national  interests,  will  be  seen 
in  the  changed  position  of  Mr.  Madison  in  1828,  when,  by 
reason  of  the  changed  local  status  of  the  interests  of  his 
State,  he  supported  the  tariff  bill  of  that  year.  The  act 
above  named  was  extended,  both  in  the  rates  of  duties 
which  it  imposed  and  the  number  of  articles  upon  which 
an  impost  was  laid,  August  10,  1790,  and  March  3,  1791. 
The  effect  of  these  several  acts  of  legislation  upon  the  ma- 
terial prosperity  of  the  country  was  quickly  visible.  The 
most  satisfactory  results  followed  their  adoption.  Not 
only  the  decline  in  our  facturing  industries  was  changed  to 
a  rapid  and  healthful  growth,  but  the  more  general  pursuits 
of  commerce  and  agriculture  were  rapidly  advanced  by 
force  of  the  diversified  interests  which  were  generated  by 
these  economic  measures  of  1789,  '90  and  '91. 

With  various  but  not,  in  many  instances,  material  modi- 
33* 


45°         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

fications,  instituted  in  1792,  '94,  '95,  '97  and  1800,  '04,  '07 
and  '08,  this  initiatory  policy  of  protection  was  pursued. 
Both  its  inception  and  continuance  were  due,  in  a  great 
measure,  to  Alexander  Hamilton,  who,  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  bent  the  whole  of  his  powerful  influence  in  this 
direction,  advocating  the  sanction  of  the  policy  by  Congress 
with  all  the  skill,  learning  and  practical  logic  of  his  ever-in- 
imitable pen.  His  official  report  of  December,  1 791,  largely 
devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  feasibility  of  fostering  our  in- 
dustrial interests  by  a  protective  policy,  has  not  only  always 
been  cited  by  the  supporters  of  protection  as  one  of  their 
most  formidable  authorities,  but  stands  to-day  wholly  un- 
answered by  its  antagonists.  It  will  ever  retain  a  place  in 
the  annals  of  American  history  as  a  production  of  the  most 
peerless  intellect  and  consummate  statesman  which  the  iron 
struggle  of  the  Revolution  gave  to  America  and  the  world. 
The  rates  of  duties  imposed  by  these  several  tariff  acts 
were  not,  in  themselves,  in  consideration  of  the  tremendous 
odds  against  which  our  infant  industries  were  arrayed,  suffi- 
ciently high  to  give  them  adequate  protection  and  defence. 
Down  to  the  year  1815,  however,  other  causes  had  aided 
them  in  the  maintenance  of  the  unequal  conflict.  The  acts 
of  1790-91  lent  sufficient  encouragement  and  aid  to  enable 
them  to  cope  with  the  superior  strength  of  England  while 
she  was  recovering  from  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  but  in 
the  absence  of  other  agencies  they  would  soon  have  needed 
reinforcement  by  additional  legislation.  Collateral  events, 
however,  rendered  such  legislation,  for  the  time,  unneces- 
sary. In  1793,  Europe  was  precipitated  into  a  struggle 
which  two  decades  were  alone  to  close.  Napoleon  at  that 
time  not  only  invited,  but  compelled,  both  England  and 
the  Continent  to  lock  their  forces  with  France  in  a  conflict 
whose  final  hour  the  cannon  of  Waterloo  were  alone  to  toll. 
During  these  twenty  years,  in  which  this  second  Alexander 
commanded  every  effort  of  the  allied  forces  to  keep  him 


TARIFFS.  45 1 

from  carrying  his  eagles  into  every  stronghold  of  their  re- 
spective domains,  consequent  events  shielded  the  youthful 
industries  of  the  United  States  from  decline  and  death.  In 
1797  the  Bank  of  England  suspended  specie  payments  for 
twenty  years,  and  the  industries  of  the  realm,  comparatively 
speaking,  were  paralyzed  and  destroyed.  The  British  Or- 
ders in  Council  in  1806,  and  Napoleon's  Berlin  and  Milan 
Decrees  of  1807,  moreover,  whereby  the  ports  of  the  con- 
tending forces  were  declared  under  a  perpetual  blockade, 
together  with  our  embargo  laid  upon  shipping  in  1807,  and 
our  non-intercourse  measures  of  1809 — both  of  which  were 
induced  by  European  confiscation  of  our  commerce  under 
the  decrees  above  mentioned,  supplemented  by  Napoleon's 
Rambouillet  Decree  in  1810,  in  retaliation  of  the  last 
named — all  conspired  to  greatly  enhance  the  price  of 
foreign  products,  and  leave  American  producers  almost 
the  exclusive  sellers  in  our  markets.  From  1812  to  1815, 
again,  so  far  as  our  economic  status  was  concerned,  our 
history  also  repeated  itself,  so  that  the  tariff  acts  of  these 
years  and  of  1813  were  fully  enforced  by  the  effects  of  the 
second  war  between  England  and  the  United  States  in 
placing  our  industries  in  equal  competition,  at  least,  with 
those  of  foreign  countries. 

At  this  point,  however,  other  and  entirely  different  ex- 
igencies presented  themselves.  The  exile  of  the  Corsican 
to  St.  Helena  had  given  Europe  rest  from  its  long-protracted 
conflict ;  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  in  1815,  had  set  its  seal  upon 
the  second  struggle  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States;  and  European  industry  shifted  from  the  creation  of 
supplies  of  war  to  catering  for  the  demands  of  peace.  The 
prospective  result  was  foreshadowed  by  some  of  the  legisla- 
tors of  that  period,  the  necessity  of  additional  legislation 
urged  upon  Congress,  and  the  tariff  act  of  April  27,  1816, 
was  adopted.  The  original  bill  was  reported  by  Mr. 
Lowndes,  and  at  this  juncture  the  second  race  of  America's 


452          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

statesmen,  if  we  may  so  term  them,  first  took' a  decided 
stand  upon  the  economic  question  of  the  republic.  Henry 
Clay,  with  Mr.  Lowndes  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  championed 
a  rigid  system  of  protection,  while  Daniel  Webster  and 
John  Randolph  arrayed  themselves  against  it.  The  status 
of  these  intellectual  giants  upon  this  measure  again  illus- 
trates the  comparative  irrelevancy  of  local  claims,  in  most 
instances,  to  national  welfare.  The  cotton  interest  then 
rendered  the  South  a  unit  in  the  support  of  protection  by 
reason  of  the  existing  impost  system  of  Great  Britain,  but 
failed  to  elicit  the  sympathy  of  the  States  upon  the  sea- 
board who  had  no  direct  interest  in  the  growth  of  this 
staple.  A  little  farther  on,  and  the  position  of  some  of 
these  combatants  will  be  radically  changed  by  reason  of 
the  same  local  pressure.  This  legislative  combat  of  1816 
was  an  unequal  struggle.  The  ponderous  eloquence  of 
Webster  and  incisive  logic  of  Randolph  trenched  not  a  lit- 
tle upon  the  scope  of  the  original  bill,  and  an  intermediate 
and  wholly  inadequate  measure,  in  consideration  of  the 
changed  condition  of  Europe  above  noted,  was  adopted. 
The  result  was  inevitable.  As  soon  as  the  European  work- 
shops fully  resumed  their  operations  as  before  the  war,  their 
superior  facilities  enabled  them  to  lay  their  wares  upon  our 
docks  at  a  price  considerably  below  that  at  which  our  own 
factories  could  produce  them,  and  the  country  was  glutted 
with  foreign  goods.  An  attempt  was  made  to  modify  the 
act  of  1816  in  1819,  but  was  unsuccessful;  and  from  that 
period  to  1824  the  prosperity  of  the  country  waned  with 
every  successive  year,  until,  at  the  time  last  above  named, 
the  general  condition  of  the  nation  was  so  deplorable  in 
the  extreme — unequaled  in  severity  by  any  of  its  civil  ex- , 
perience  since  the  close  of  the  Revolution — that  Congress 
was  compelled  not  only  to  listen  but  to  accede  to  the 
clamor  of  the  people  for  relief.  Hamilton's  report  of  1791 
was  exhumed,  and  the  tariff  act  of  1824  was  adopted. 


TARIFFS.  453 

Fully  three  months  were  consumed  in  the  discussion  of  this 
measure,  and  the  debates  were  some  of  the  ablest  which 
have  ever  emanated  from  the  halls  of  Congress.  The  mas- 
ter-spirits of  the  republic,  Clay  and  Webster,  were  again 
pitted  against  each  other  in  a  second  conflict  over  the  ex- 
pediency of  protection.  To  quote  the  words  of  an  eloquent 
historian,  "Mr.  Clay  was  the  Ajax  Telamon  of  the  bill, 
ably  supported  by  Mr.  Tod  and  many  others  on  different 
points;  but  Hectors  were  not  wanting  on  the  other  side  to 
contest  the  ground  inch  by  inch." 

It  is  again  noticeable  in  this  connection  how  the  claims 
of  locality  will  prejudice  the  most  peerless  mind  against  the 
general  welfare.  Not  only  the  agricultural  but  also  the 
manufacturing  States  were  almost  a  unit  in  the  support  of 
the  measure,  but  the  navigating  and  fishing  States  were 
equally  zealous  for  its  defeat.  Of  the  former  were  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  Vermont,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
Missouri,  Maryland,  Tennessee  and  Louisiana;  and  of  the 
latter,  Maine,  New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts.  The 
editor  of  Niks' s  Register  justly  remarks  in  this  connection 
that  "  the  unanimity  of  the  navigating  States  against  the 
wishes  of  the  middle  grain-growing  States  will  surprise 
those  who  recollect  that  the  former  were  indebted  to  the 
latter  for  the  passage  of  every  law  that  protected  and  estab- 
lished their  navigation." 

Like  the  one  of  1816,  this  conflict  of  those  giant  intel- 
lects was  an  unequal  struggle,  but  the  position  of  the  com- 
batants, in  point  of  strength,  was  reversed.  The  clear,  re- 
splendent eloquence  of  Webster  was  more  than  a  match  for 
the  magnetic  thrusts  of  Clay,  but  the  almost  universal  dis- 
tress of  the  people  pleaded  with  greater  force  than  even 
New  England's  "  Hector,"  and  the  gallant  Kentwkian  led 
his  forces  triumphant  from  the  field. 

The  bill  was  not,  in  all  respects,  evenly  balanced,  nor 


454         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

indeed,  in  consideration  of  the  hotly-contested  battle  of 
which  it  was  the  subject,  was  such  an  expectation  warranted. 
Its  defects,  however,  were  partially  remedied  in  1828,  and 
from  1824  to  1833  the  country  was  under  the  regime  of  a 
rigid  policy  of  protection.  The  principal  of  the  defects 
above  noticed  was  the  exclusion  from  the  free  list  of  many 
articles,  such  as  tea  and  coffee,  which  this  country  did  not 
nor  could  not  produce.  But  in  1832  the  free  list  was  ex- 
tended to  nearly  the  proper  point,  and  the  objectionable 
features  of  the  former  law  wellnigh  removed.  And  in  this 
interval  (1824  to  1833)  ^e  expectations  of  the  movers  of 
the  policy  were  fully  substantiated.  The  general  prosperity 
of  the  people,  as  seen  immediately  prior  to  1816,  was  fully 
restored,  and  no  particular  locality  had  any  extended  rea- 
son to  demand  a  radical  change. 

After  the  act  of  1828  this  narrative,  with  the  exception 
of  the  instances  in  the  next  preceding  paragraph,  omits  any 
mention  of  the  enactment  of  mere  periodical  amendments 
to  original  measures  of  impost,  and  only  considers  the  lat- 
ter, which  alone  have  worked  any  marked  changes,  either 
directly  or  collaterally,  upon  the  general  interests  of  the 
nation.  And  this  brings  our  history  to  the  tariff  act  of 
1833,  otherwise  known  as  the  "Compromise  Act." 

This  measure  abandoned  the  policy  of  protection  in  pro- 
spectu  by  providing  for  a  steady,  periodical  reduction  of 
duties  until  the  then  existing  system  should  be  wellnigh  abol- 
ished. The  scheme  was  projected  by  Henry  Clay,  and  had 
its  origin  in  facts  of  peculiar  interest.  Since  1824,  when  they 
so  stoutly  opposed  the  tariff  act  of  that  year  by  virtue  of  the 
anticipation  that  it  would  retard  their  navigation  interests, 
the  States  of  the  Northern  seaboard  had  joined  the  lists  of 
the  Middle  States  in  the  establishment  of  facturing  indus- 
tries. The  West  was  yet  in  its  infancy,  so  far  as  influence 
in  the  halls  of  Congress  was  concerned  at  least,  but  the 
South,  then  almost  exclusively  given  to  the  production  of 


TARIFFS.  455 

cotton  for  exportation,  entered  loud  and  frequent  protests 
against  a  system  which,  as  it  alleged,  by  enhancing  the  cost 
of  a  great  number  of  its  articles  of  consumption,  taxed  its 
people  for  the  benefit  of  the  other  sections  above  named. 
The  States  most  prominent  in  these  demonstrations  of  dis- 
content were  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama  and  Vir- 
ginia. The  first  named,  indeed,  had  gone  to  the  extent  of 
holding  a  State  convention  in  the  autumn  of  1832,  and 
passed  an  ordinance,  commonly  known  as  the  "  Nullifica- 
tion "  scheme,  whereby,  after  February  of  the  next  ensuing 
year,  the  laws  of  the  General  Government  for  the  collection 
of  imposts  were  to  be  wholly  disregarded,  and  its  officers, 
if  need  be,  opposed  by  force. 

To  avert  the  seemingly  impending  conflict,  Mr.  Clay  in- 
troduced his  compromise  bill  above  noticed.  History,  on 
the  one  hand,  accuses  its  author  of  a  motive  to  popularize 
himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  next  succeeding  presidency, 
and  on  the  other  accords  him  a  sincere  desire  to  alleviate 
the  growing  discontent.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  proved  a  most 
unwise  expedient,  and  in  the  light  of  the  Kentuckian's  clear 
appreciation  of  the  needs  of  the  country  in  1824  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  he  should  have  instituted  the  tariff  act  of 
1833.  The  "  Ajax  "  and  the  "  Hector  "  of  Congress  were 
again  involved  in  this  struggle  of  protection,  but  their  posi- 
tions were  directly  reversed  from  1828.  Mr.  Webster,  with 
unanswerable  logic,  opposed  the  scheme,  but  the  importu- 
nities of  Clay  to  avoid  the  clash  of  State  and  national  au- 
thority prevailed,  the  measure  was  passed,  protection  aban- 
doned, and  the  interests  of  the  many  deserted  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  few. 

From  1833  till  1842,  in  pursuance  of  the  foregoing  facts, 
free  trade,  comparatively  speaking,  had  exclusive  and  unre- 
mitting sway  in  the  United  States.  The  line  of  disasters 
which  followed  its  adoption  in  such  quick  succession  as  to 
overreach  ea<  h  other  in  their  march  of  conquest  against  the 


456         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

general  weal,  pointed  so  clearly  to  this  change  of  policy  as 
their  legitimate  parent  that  the  wheels  of  government,  in 
this  respect,  were  again  reversed,  and  the  year  last  named 
recorded  a  return  to  protection.  The  tariff  act  of  1842  was 
long,  ably  and  dispassionately  considered,  and  discovered 
none  of  the  glaring  defects  of  its  predecessors.  Its  dis- 
tribution of  duties  was  very  evenly  balanced,  and  the  im- 
posts laid  by  this  law  were  very  nearly  what  a  protective 
policy  naturally  demands — the  equalization  of  competition 
among  competing  industries.  It  fully  met  the  expectations 
of  its  warmest  friends,  and  reinstated  the  country  in  its 
former  position  of  productiveness  and  consequent  prosperity. 
It  was  modified  in  1846  by  the  substitution  of  ad  valorem 
for  specific  duties — by  far  the  most  indefensible  species  of 
tariff  legislation,  on  account  of  the  frauds  which  it  invites 
by  means  of  false  valuations ;  but  notwithstanding  this  un- 
wise amendment,  it  still  offered  sufficient  protection  to  our 
industries  to  save,  for  the  most  part,  the  general  prosperity 
of  the  country  unharmed  and  free  from  peril.  From  the 
time  of  its  adoption  (1842),  indeed,  to  1857,  the  enhance- 
ment of  both  individual  and  national  wealth  was  marked 
and  unceasing.  Several  collateral  causes,  in  fact,  coupled 
with  our  protective  policy,  rendered  the  period  above 
named  one  of  almost  unexampled  prosperity.  The  im- 
mense demand  for  cereals  from  Great  Britain,  owing  to  the 
shortness  of  her  crop  in  1848,  the  discovery  of  the  Cali- 
fornia gold-mines  in  the  following  year,  and  the  European 
convulsion  of  1854-56,  together  with  enormous  crops  in 
the  agricultural  districts  in  the  same  interval,  yoked  their 
voluntary  forces  with  the  measure  of  1842  in  giving  a  tre- 
mendous impetus  to  the  advancement  of  the  United  States. 
The  claims  of  locality,  however,  again  clamored  for  and 
obtained  an  audience  in  1857,  and  on  March  3d  of  that 
year  a  reduction  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  was  made  from 
the  duties  laid  by  the  imposts  of  1842-46,  and  from  the 


TARIFFS.  457 

year  first  above  named  until  the  cannon  of  Beauregard 
summoned  the  supporters  of  the  Government  to  its  defence, 
the  nation  vibrated,  on  the  one  hand,  between  the  hopes  of 
maintaining  its  business  interests  unharmed,  and  the  rap- 
idly thickening  chances  of  a  general  financial  collapse  on 
the  other.  The  precipitation  of  the  rebellion,  however, 
drove  the  Government,  as  if  by  instinct,  to  seek  the  aid  of 
protection,  which  had  been  its  companion  in  every  hour  of 
prior  prosperity,  to  carry  it  over  the  inappreciable  shoals 
and  quicksands  of  a  measureless  war;  and  the  Morrill  tariff 
of  March  2,  1861,  very  similar  in  its  scope  to  the  impost 
of  1828,  was  placed  upon  the  national  statute-book.  It  was 
a  faithful  ally  through  the  dreary  four  years  wherein  half  a 
million  of  humanity  courted  death  that  the  republic  might 
live ;  and  in  contemplation  of  the  ever  since  diseased  con- 
dition of  our  circulating  medium  has — by  the  defence  which 
it  has  thrown  around  the  industries  generated  by  its  prede- 
cessors, and  those  of  which  it  is  itself  the  parent,  whereby 
the  production  of  the  nation  has  been  constantly  augmented 
and  its  laboring  classes  fully  employed — been  almost  the 
only  agency  which  has  piloted  the  nation  successfully 
through  the  maladministration  of  the  last  four  years,  crim- 
inally corrupt  as  it  has  proved  itself,  and  substantiates,  in 
one  respect  at  least,  the  wisdom  of  the  man  who  has  ever 
been  the  foremost  champion  of  the  principle  which  it  rep- 
resents, and  who  has  recently  put  upon  record  "  the  confi- 
dent trust  that  the  masses  of  our  countrymen,  North  and 
South,  are  eager  to  clasp  hands  across  the  bloody  chasm 
which  has  too  long  divided  them,  forgetting  that  they  have 
been  enemies  in  the  joyful  consciousness  that  they  are,  and 
must  henceforth  remain,  brethren." 

In  respect  to  a  partially  detailed  review,  as  promised  in 

the  outset  of  this  immediate  discussion,  of  the  events  of 

our  history  collateral  with  this  tariff  legislation,  tending  to 

show  its  wisdom  and  desirability,  very  little  need  be  said. 

39  U 


45  8         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Such  comment  has  been  partly  anticipated  in  the  preceding 
narrative,  the  general  statements  of  which,  in  this  direction, 
are  too  well  known  to  be  true  by  every  student  of  Ameri- 
can history  to  require  either  amplification  or  explicit  recital. 
Citations  of  particular  circumstances,  therefore,  will  only 
be  made  from  such  periods  as  record  the  most  radical 
changes  in  our  economic  policy. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  from  the  adoption  of  the 
tariff  of  1791  to  1816  the  collateral  causes  arising  from  the 
twenty  years'  conflict  in  Europe  and  the  second  war  of  this 
country  with  Great  Britain  so  supplemented  the  inefficiency 
of  the  embryo  protective  policy  of  that  period  that  uni- 
versal prosperity  attended  all  sections  of  the  United  States. 
From  the  commencement  of  the  year  last  above  named, 
however,  until  1824,  this  artificial  source  of  protection 
having  been  exhausted,  the  nation  was  comparatively  ex- 
posed to  the  onslaughts  of  the  free  trade  system.  The 
results  thereof  may  be  sufficiently  appreciated  by  even  a 
superficial  glance  at  the  current  events  of  that  period. 
Under  the  force  of  excessive  importations,  induced  by  the 
cheapness  of  foreign  wares  as  compared  with  those  of 
American  production,  our  facturing  establishments  were 
more  than  one-half  suspended,  their  operatives  discharged 
and  unable  to  find  employment,  while  those  that  continued 
in  operation  did  so  at  the  expense  of  an  inroad  upon  their 
working  capital.  The  condition  of  the  agricultural  classes 
was  indeed  no  better.  If  not  more  so — that  was  scarcely 
possible — they  were  equally  unfortunate  and  depressed. 
The  unusual  European  demand  for  cereals,  caused  by  the 
raging  of  a  protracted  war,  had  ceased,  and  as  compara- 
tive free  trade  had  ruined  our  facturing  interests,  the  home 
market  for  agricultural  products  was  also  seriously  injured, 
if  not  destroyed,  so  that  the  selling  price  of  farmers'  sup- 
plies was  not  sufficient  to  pay  the  cost  of  production  and 
place  them  in  the  seaboard  marts  for  sale  and  shipment. 


TARIFFS.  459 

Every  species  of  real  property,  moreover,  depreciated  fully 
fifty  per  cent,  in  value ;  sales  thereof  were  impossible, 
except  by  the  sheriff,  which  were  unpleasantly  frequent; 
paper  money  was  resorted  to,  which  only  augmented 
instead  of  restricted  the  general  distress;  and  absolute 
bankruptcy  forced  its  unwelcome  presence  upon  the  masses. 

The  exact  condition  of  our  import  and  export  trade 
during  this  interval  of  free  trade  may  be  better  seen  by  the 
citation  of  a  few  statistics.  The  amount  of  domestic 
exports  in  1796  was  $40,764,097.  The  annual  ratio  of  in- 
crease in  our  population  since  that  year  had  been  four  per 
cent.  Assuming  this  as  a  criterion  by  which  to  estimate  the 
natural  increase  of  our  exports,  they  should  have  been  in 
1823  over  $85,000,000;  they  were,  however,  only  about 
$47,000,000.  Looking  at  particular  products  of  export, 
the  shipments  of  tobacco  in  1791  amounted  to  12,428  hogs- 
heads. By  the  criterion  above  noted  pur  shipments  in 
1823  should  have  been  over  250,000  hogsheads,  but  they 
were  less  than  100,000.  In  1803  we  exported  1,311,853 
barrels  of  flour.  Making  allowance  for  the  natural  falling 
off  of  the  increased  demand  from  Europe  by  reason  of  the 
close  of  the  war,  we  should  have  shipped  as  much  in  1823 
as  in  1803,  but  we  exported  during  the  year  last  named 
only  about  700,000  barrels.  The  same  relative  diminution 
was  apparent  in  our  exports  of  corn.  Our  imports,  how- 
ever, in  this  interval,  reached  an  average  increase  of  thirty 
per  cent. 

The  above  is  not  an  exaggerated  picture  of  the  condition 
of  the  country  from  1816  to  1824.  It  does  not,  in  fart, 
adequately  represent  the  general  depression  of  business 
interests  during  this  period,  but  further  space  cannot  l>e 
allowed  for  its  portrayal.  One  fact,  however,  should  not 
escape  attention.  Here  were  eight  years  of  a  free  trade 
rdgime,  but  instead  of  the  country  recovering  from  the  re- 
action which  its  supporters  admit  must  attend  the  first  few 


4^0         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

years  of  its  adoption,  every  successive  year  witnessed  an 
increase  of  the  general  distress,  till  in  the  autumn  of  1823, 
before  the  tariff  act  of  1824  was  established,  the  people 
were  wellnigh  upon  the  point  of  revolution.  Public  meet- 
ings were  constantly  held  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
seaboard  and  Middle  States,  memorializing  Congress  for 
relief  through  legislation. 

Another  thought  of  a  duplex  character  is  pertinent  in 
this  connection.  The  facts  above  narrated  clearly  demon- 
strate, first,  the  impossibility  of  national  or  individual 
prosperity  where  agriculture  is  quite  or  nearly  the  exclusive 
vocation  of  the  masses — the  absolute  necessity  of  versatile 
industries  for  public  and  private  advancement ;  and,  sec- 
ond, that  capital  and  labor  do  not  readily  find  new  employ- 
ment in  the  absence  of  unusual  inducements.  From  1816  to 
1824  our  agriculturists  were  embarrassed  fully  as  much  as 
those  engaged  in  /acturing  industries.  The  destruction  of 
the  latter  by  free  trade,  carrying  with  it,  as  a  natural 
consequence,  the  restriction  of  the  home  market  for  farm- 
ers' products,  tolled  the  knell  of  agricultural  advance- 
ment, and  instead  of  the  excess  of  labor  sustaining  a  reduc- 
tion year  by  year,  the  ranks  of  the  involuntary  idlers  were 
annually  swelled. 

The  tariff  act  of  1824,  which  resulted  from  this  universal 
complaint,  with  the  amendatory  provisions  of  1828 — both 
of  which  have  been  explained  in  a  prior  connection — 
afforded  the  necessary  relief.  The  gates  were  closed  upon 
our  enormous  importations  of  foreign  wares;  our  facturing 
industries  were  reinstated  in  their  prior  prosperity ;  the 
products  of  agriculture  therein  found  a  restored  market;  our 
laboring  population  was  divorced  from  idleness;  real  estate 
advanced  in  value ;  paper  money  was  discarded,  and  the 
advancement  of  individual  and  national  interests  generally 
revived. 

The  cause  of  the  departure  from  this  beneficial  policy  in 


TARIFFS.  461 

1833,  as  already  shown,  was  purely  ephemeral.  Every 
section  of  the  country,  except  the  cotton-growing  region, 
was  interested  in  its  continuance,  and  the  real  interests  of 
the  South,  indeed,  were  inseparably  joined  with  the  pros- 
perity of  the  Middle  and  seaboard  States.  Without  such 
prosperity  her  decline  was  a  mere  question  of  time,  so  long 
as  she  followed  the  production  of  her  leading  agricultural 
staples  to  the  exclusion  of  other  pursuits.  She  was  truly  pros- 
perous when  in  1832  she  announced  her  policy  of  nullifi- 
cation. Her  people  were  all  provided  with  employment, 
and  every  year  was  recording  an  increase  of  her  material 
wealth.  The  compromise  act  of  1833  was  a  response  to  a 
sectional  clamor  which  should  have  never  been  granted, 
and  was  followed  by  a  train  of  evils  no  less  disastrous  than 
those  which  swept  the  country  from  1816  to  1824. 

Space  will  not  permit  so  extended  a  citation  of  particulars 
from  our  history  during  the  period  of  this  revival  of  free 
trade  (1833-42)  as  was  taken  from  the  record  of  the  eight 
years  which  first  preceded  the  tariff  of  1824.  Nor  is  such 
a  course  necessary.  The  facts  are  within  the  knowledge  of 
every  intelligent  citizen.  With  the  barriers  removed  from 
our  ports  of  entry,  our  imports  at  once  jumped  to  seventy- 
five  per  cent,  above  their  prior  volume;  excessive  trading 
was  essayed ;  our  facturing  industries  were  again  paralyzed 
and  the  laboring  classes  forced  into  idleness;  the  bank 
circulation  of  the  country  was  nearly  doubled  to  float  the 
unhealthy  traffic  which  the  excessive  importations  had  in- 
duced ;  trade  finally  became  stagnant ;  obligations  which 
their  makers  expected  to  meet  from  the  prospective  profits 
of  speculative  dealing  matured  with  their  stocks  unsold ; 
the  same  were  not  protected;  prices  fell,  and  the  banks, 
people  and  nation  were  enveloped  in  the  financial  collapse 
of  1837. 

With  the  history  of  the  first  reign  of  free  trade  constantly 
repeating  itself,  Congress  was  again  compelled  to  resort  to 
39  • 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

protection  in  1842.  The  changed  condition  of  affairs 
which  attended  its  administration  until  1857  was  sufficiently 
narrated  in  a  prior  connection,  and  we  pass  to  a  running 
glance  at  the  disasters  which  were  ushered  in  by  its  partial 
abandonment  in  the  year  last  named.  Our  imports  were 
immediately  doubled ;  the  bank  circulation  extended  in  an 
equal  ratio  as  in  1833  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  unhealthy 
traffic  in  foreign  goods ;  the  events  of  the  last  free  trade 
regime  were  re-enacted ;  and  the  country  was  again  pros- 
trated under  the  financial  crash  of  1857. 

The  subsequent  events  will  not  be  here  epitomized.  The 
object  of  this  immediate  sub-subject  has  been  sufficiently 
compassed.  The  record  shows  that  the  United  States  under 
protection  have  ever  been  prosperous,  but  that  under  free 
trade,  owing  to  their  comparative  infancy,  misfortune  has 
been  their  continual  lot.  The  argument  of  facts  is  suffi- 
ciently conclusive,  and  the  logical  inference  is  unmistakable. 

II.  THE  CLASSES  OF  ARTICLES  TO  WHICH  A  TARIFF  SHOULD 
ATTACH. 

So  far  as  the  purposes  of  this  treatise  are  concerned,  the 
remaining  discussion  of  the  present  chapter  may  properly 
be  placed  almost  within  the  limits  of  a  single  paragraph. 
As  already  remarked,  a  detailed  statement  of  all  the  articles 
upon  which  an  impost  should  be  laid  in  order  to  pursue  a 
consistent,  uniform  policy  of  protection  would  not  only  be 
here  impracticable,  but  also  irrelevant.  And  the  same  is 
true  as  to  the  amount  of  such  an  impost.  In  respect,  more- 
over, to  a  definition  of  the  exact  limits  of  these  two  prop- 
ositions in  general,  the  same  has  been,  inferentially  at 
least,  so  fully  anticipated  in  the  preceding  examination  of 
economic  principles  that  further  amplification  is  quite  un- 
necessary. Simply  reducing  the  isolated  truths  of  the  prior 
discussion  in  this  direction,  therefore,  into  tangible,  avail- 


TARIFFS.  463 

able  rules,  the  closing  comment  upon  the  joint  topic  of 
protection  and  free  trade  will  be  now  presented. 

For  the  purposes  of  protection  a  tariff  should  only  be  laid 
upon  such  commodities  as  the  nation  adopting  it  has  nat- 
ural advantages  to  produce,  the  non-development  of  which 
places  it,  in  respect  to  the  production  thereof,  in  unequal 
competition  with  foreign  states,  invariably  excluding  raw 
materials,  except,  perhaps,  in  the  very  first  stages  of  the 
industry  which  essays  their  production.  In  one  respect  a 
word  of  caution  may  be  here  advisable.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered in  this  connection  that  the  foregoing  proposition  con- 
templates alone  the  elements  of  protection,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  necessities  of  a  people  to  lay  an  impost  for  mere 
purposes  of  revenue.  The  proposition  is  seemingly  too 
plain  to  require  elucidation.  A  word  of  comment,  how- 
ever, may  perhaps  be  suffered  in  illustration  of  both  the 
general  rule  and  also  the  additional  restriction  in  respect  to 
raw  materials.  As  to  the  first,  tea  and  coffee  furnish  a 
striking  example.  The  climate  of  our  country  is  such  as 
will  not  admit  of  their  culture  to  any  advantage  at  least,  if 
indeed  to  any  extent,  with  the  exception  of  the  former  in 
very  restricted  localities.  The  articles,  if  not  actual,  are 
acknowledged  necessaries  of  subsistence.  It  must  be  a  very 
heavy  impost  which  will  banish  them  from  either  the  cabins 
that  dot  the  prairies  of  the  West  or  the  humble  homes  of 
Eastern  artisans.  The  system  of  protection,  in  view  of  these 
facts,  has  no  color  of  right  to  obstruct,  in  the  slightest  man- 
ner, their  importation.  They  were  unwisely  placed  under 
a  heavy  burden  by  the  tariff  of  1824,  but  the  compromise 
act  of  1833  assigned  them  to  the  free  list,  and  they  have 
ever  since  been  a  common  article  of  household  supply, 
notwithstanding  the  levy  they  were  subjected  to  by  the 
Morrill  tariff  of  1861.  This  measure,  however,  contem- 
plated the  raising  of  revenue  as  well  as  the  protection  of 
our  industries.  The  act  of  the  present  session  of  Congress 


464         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

(the  Forty-second)  has  properly  released  them  from  this 
impost,  and  never,  except  in  case  of  the  most  pressing 
financial  requirements,  should  they  again  be  placed  under 
the  surveillance  of  tariff  legislation.  They  are  clearly  with- 
out not  only  the  general  rule  above  stated,  but  also  the  col- 
lateral one  of  taxation  (to  be  examined  in  the  next  succeed- 
ing chapter),  which  warrants  the  expediency  of  an  assess- 
ment upon  business. 

Passing  to  a  brief  amplification  of  that  portion  of  the 
proposition  which  alludes  to  raw  materials,  four  leading 
staples  will  be  instanced  for  its  explanation — namely,  iron, 
coal,  lumber  and  wool.  Each  one  of  these  articles  is  sub- 
ject with  us,  for  the  most  part,  to  peculiar  conditions.  All 
raw  materials,  our  general  proposition  would  exclude  them 
from  the  operation  of  a  protective  tariff.  The  first,  how- 
ever, rightly  claims  its  guardianship ;  the  last  three  have  no 
need  of  its  fostering  care. 

Our  natural  advantages  for  the  production  of  iron  are 
fully,  if  not  more  than,  ordinary.  The  demand  for  it,  by 
reason  of  our  extensive  railway  projects  and  its  annually 
increasing  consumption  in  the  facture  of  artisans'  and  farm- 
ers' tools,  is  constantly  augmented.  Our  explorations  give 
promise  not  only  of  ore-beds  in  abundant  number,  but  also 
of  extraordinary  supply.  We  should  consequently  facture 
all  we  consume.  But  the  establishment  of  the  industry  is 
attended  both  with  a  heavy  outlay  in  the  first  instance,  and 
the  necessity  of  a  considerable  education  of  the  labor  em- 
ployed in  its  conduct.  It  is  therefore  entitled,  for  a  few 
years  at  least,  to  the  defensive  shield  of  a  protective  impost. 

As  to  coal  the  case  is  entirely  different.  The  cost  of 
transportation  is  so  immense,  and  other  bases  of  supply  are 
so  far  distant,  that  our  anthracite  interests  are  subjected  to 
no  jeopardy  by  the  absence  of  all  barriers  against  this  par- 
ticular species  in  our  customs  policy.  With  the  bitumi- 
nous fields  of  Nova  Scotia  alone  are  our  mining  industries 


TARIFFS.  465 

subject  to  competition.  Of  bituminous  coal  this  country, 
it  is  true,  is  also  a  producer,  but  the  cost  of  carriage  bars 
the  Nova  Scotia  operators  from  obtaining  customers  here, 
except  in  the  States  of  the  northern  Atlantic  seaboard. 
Our  bituminous  consumption  in  this  restricted  locality  is  so 
inconsiderable,  and  our  bituminous  coal-beds,  in  addition, 
are,  for  the  most  part,  so  far  removed  therefrom,  and  their 
product  in  so  small  demand,  that  coal  should  be  found  with 
the  articles  upon  our  free  list,  except  when  unusual  exigen- 
cies may  demand  an  unusual  revenue. 

In  reference  to  lumber,  it  is  hardly,  in  any  instance,  a 
proper  subject  of  tariff  legislation.  Special  causes  may 
make  it  so,  but  they  are  hardly  conceivable.  The  only 
protection  we  need  in  this  direction  is  to  shield  our  rapidly- 
vanishing  forests  from  further  destruction.  The  meteoro- 
logical argument  is  here  unanswerable.  The  tremendous 
inroads  upon  our  timbered  districts  are  presenting  more 
than  auguries  of  an  arid  climate.  The  future  probability 
has  become  a  present  fact,  and  the  regularly  recurring  an- 
nual droughts  in  our  long-settled  regions  are  assuming  a 
stubborn  significance.  Our  facturing  industries,  even, 
which  protection  chiefly  aims  to  guard,  as  well  as  all  others, 
are  almost  wholly  dependent  upon  the  humidity  of  the 
seasons.  No  pretext  whatever,  not  even  the  necessities  of 
a  revenue  larger  than  this  country  has  ever  required,  should 
deny  lumber  a  constant  place  upon  our  free  list. 

With  wool  the  question  is  very  much  the  same.  The 
general  statement  is  abundantly  warranted  that  our  agricul- 
ture needs  no  protection  whatever.  For  the  most  part  it 
requires  no  further  diversification.  Our  climatic  and  terri- 
torial status  has  opened  so  many  avenues  of  agricultural 
industry  which,  by  the  side  of  our  facturing  establishments, 
are  naturally  remunerative,  that  the  forced  encouragement 
of  the  production  of  this  raw  staple  is  quite  unnecessary. 
It  is  the  facture  of  the  textile  fabrics  into  which  wool  enters 

U  2 


466         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

as  a  component  part  that  here  needs  protection ;  and  so 
long  as  our  agricultural  industries  have  sufficient  natural 
demands  to  profitably  absorb  their  entire  attention  in  other 
fields  of  labor,  such  protection  will  be  aided  instead  of 
withheld  by  leaving  our  facturers  free  to  purchase  this  raw 
product  abroad  if  they  can  so  obtain  it  more  advantageously. 
If  the  foreign  markets  become  unwarrantably  high  in  their 
rates,  the  unusual  profit  afforded  by  the  industry  will  turn 
the  attention  of  our  agriculturists  in  this  direction,  to  the 
benefit  both  of  themselves  and  the  workers  of  the  raw 
staple.  The  impropriety  of  essaying  protection  to  wool- 
growers  in  this  country  is  fully  evidenced  by  the  results  of 
the  tariff  of  March  2,  1867.  By  this  act  the  tariff  upon 
imported  wool  was  laid  at  so  high  a  figure  that  our  agricul- 
tural population  directed  a  greatly-increased  share  of  their 
attention  to  the  growth  of  this  staple,  and  from  a  clip  of 
about  120,000,000  pounds  of  wool  i-n  1867  our  production 
jumped  to  one  of  160,000,000  pounds  in  1868.  This,  in 
connection  with  importations,  so  depressed  the  market  that 
a  wholesale  slaughter  of  sheep  was  inaugurated  in  1869;  so 
that  from  a  clip  of  160,000,000  pounds  in  1868  we  went 
down  to  one  of  110,000,000  pounds  in  1870,  and  the  flocks 
diminished  from  40,000,000  sheep  in  1869  to  29,000,000 
sheep  in  1871. 

III.   THE   EXTENT   TO   WHICH   A  PROTECTIVE   IMPOST 

SHOULD    BE    LAID. 

The  term  Protection  defines  the  true  limits  of  the  system. 
Its  office  is  simply  to  equalize  opportunity,  to  place  com- 
peting industries  upon  the  same  relative  basis.  The  adjust- 
ment of  a  protective  tariff,  it  is  true,  is  a  task  of  a  somewhat 
delicate  character,  and  improper  and  illegal  influence  has 
rendered  in  the  past,  as  it  doubtless  will  render  in  the 
future,  the  policy,  in  some  instances,  the  vehicle  of  both 
oppression  and  fraud.  That  is  an  argument,  however,  which 


TARIFFS.  467 

cannot  be  fairly  allowed  to  militate  against  protection.  It 
will  not  answer  to  saddle  this  one  system  with  the  respon- 
sibility of  our  official  corruption — to  compel  it  to  answer 
either  for  the  sin  of  bribery  in  the  abstract  or  the  venality 
of  our  legislators  in  general.  The  purification  of  our  poli- 
tics is  one  thing — the  adjustment  of  a  protective  tariff  is 
quite  another.  The  first  is  not  to  be  compassed  by  the 
adoption  of  free  trade,  nor  the  expediency  of  the  latter  dis- 
proved by  its  forced  bridal  with  corruption.  This  last  is 
a  very  polygamous  agency,  and  through  the  ministrations 
of  our  civil  service  has,  vi  et  armis,  wedded  itself  to  all  the 
forces  of  our  political  life.  The  destruction  of  the  means 
will  abolish  the  evil — the  dismissal  of  the  priest  will  defeat 
the  marriage.  Reform  our  civil  service  so  that  the  purchase 
and  sale  of  official  place  by  its  members  will  be  impossible, 
and  the  machinery  of  legislation  will  cease  to  foster  wrong 
with  intent.  Place  the  law-maker  where  absolute  honesty 
is  his  only  assurance  of  individual  gain,  and  our  statutes, 
whether  economic  or  otherwise,  will  no  longer  disseminate 
injustice.  To  assail  a  system  on  account  of  corruption  is  to 
demand  that  the  world  shall  cease  its  labors  because  cor- 
ruption exists. 

The  amount  of  a  protective  impost  should  be  sufficient  to 
make  the  cost  (not  price)  of  the  foreign  commodity  to  its 
shipper  when  placed  upon  our  soil  equal  to  the  cost  of  a 
similar  article  of  home  production  when  ready  for  delivery 
at  the  facturing  mart. 

It  is  nugatory  to  essay  the  application  of  this  rule  to  par- 
ticular instances.  Its  clearness  will  not  thereby  be  further 
assured.  One  illustration  in  detail  is  as  pertinent  as  an- 
other, and  the  necessity  for  any  or  all  is  non-apparent. 

Elucidation  of  the  proposition  is  likewise  uncalled  for. 
The  making  of  the  cost  of  foreign  goods  to  the  s/i//>/><-r, 
when  placed  upon  our  soil,  equal  with  that  of  similar  home 
goods  to  the  producer  when  ready  for  delivery  at  the  fac- 


468          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

turing  mart,  makes  the  foreign  shipper  the  foreign  producer, 
and  renders  the  office  of  the  "middleman"  impossible. 
This  bars  the  home  producer  from  adding  the  profit  of 
the  foreign  "middleman"  to  the  cost  of  his  products,  and 
thereby  to  that  extent  unwarrantably  enhancing  his  price. 
And  as  domestic  commercial  usage  affixes  the/r/V*  to  goods 
"  in  store,"  the  buyer  paying  the  expense  of  transportation, 
the  dock  for  the  foreign  seller  and  the  facturing  mart  for  the 
home  seller  are  the  places  to  equalize  the  cost.  The  vend- 
ers are  then  left  to  the  force  of  equal  competition,  and  he 
who  is  satisfied  with  the  smallest  profit,  due  regard  to  qual- 
ity being  considered,  will  command  the  purchasing  trade. 


CHAPTER   III. 

TAXA  TION. 

Introductory  Comment — The  Scope  of  the  Topic — Taxation  in  the 
Abstract  defined — It  is  a  Creature  of  Policy — How  the  March  of 
Civilization  Compels  it — The  Kinds  of  Taxes  Classified — Direct, 
Indirect,  Real,  Personal  and  Individual  Taxation  defined — The 
Powers  of  Taxation  Conferred  by  the  Constitution — An  Equalization 
of  the  Burden  the  Prime  Difficulty  of  Taxation — How  shall  it  be 
Overcome  ? — Proportionate  Sacrifice  and  Proportionate  Protection — 
The  Progressive  System — Direct  Taxation  Discussed — The  Land- 
tax — Citations  from  English  History — The  Most  Just — Income-taxes 
— Impracticable,  and,  in  the  United  States,  Unconstitutional — Capita- 
tion-taxes— Indirect  Taxation — A  House-tax — Unjust  and  Unrea- 
sonable— Citations  from  English  and  Irish  History — Eminent  Writers 
thereon — Excise-taxes — They  Reach  Profits,  Vocations  and  Com- 
modities— Labor  in  this  Connection — They  work  Injustice — Inap- 
preciable— The  Error  of  Congress  in  this  Connection — The  Whisky- 
tax — High  Rates  of  Taxation  upon  Luxuries  and  Low  Rates  upon 
Necessaries  yield  the  Greatest  Revenue — Taxation  by  Tariffs — The 
Results  of  Indirect  Taxation  in  the  United  States — Full  Statistics 
show  them  Oppressive  and  Unfair — The  Question  of  State  Taxation 
— It  should  be  Confined  to  Real  Property — Objections  to  the  Plan 


TAXATION.  469 

refuted — The  Question  of  Taxation  by  the  General  Government — A 
Proper  Scheme  Suggested,  and  Discussed  at  length — The  Present 
Needs  of  the  General  Government — All  Direct  Taxes  may  be  Abol- 
ished and  our  Tariff  Curtailed,  and  still  Reduce  our  Debt  Fifty 
Millions  per  Annum — The  Error  of  Congress  in  this  Respect — 
"  Revenue  Reform." 

THE  two  preceding  chapters  of  the  present  Part  of  this 
treatise,  with  the  exception  of  a  little  incidental  com- 
ment, referred  exclusively  to  the  topic  of  industrial  legisla- 
tion— the  guardianship  of  industry — without  respect  to  the 
raising  of  revenue.  The  discussion  now  initiated  will  have 
to  do  with  legislation  for  the  purposes  of  revenue,  and  has 
been  entitled  Taxation.  By  this  title  the  reader  must  not 
be  misled  as  to  the  intended  scope  of  the  proposed  investi- 
gation. Taxation,  in  its  general,  unrestricted  sense,  covers 
a  very  extended  field  of  economic  inquiry.  It  forces  its 
way  into  every  avenue  of  social  existence,  and  raises  ques- 
tions for  solution  no  more  delicate  than  multifarious.  Fran- 
cis Lieber  has  aptly  remarked,  "Taxation  is  omnipresent." 
And  who  can  deny  the  aphorism?  Mankind,  indeed,  are 
constantly  paying  for  the  privilege  of  life — parting  with  a 
portion  of  their  moneyed  results  to  insure  the  safety  of  their 
future  efforts.  From  their  food,  raiment,  shelter  and  pleasure 
this  tribute  is  unremittingly  demanded,  and  their  public 
worship  even  is  intruded  upon  by  the  presentation  of  the 
cushioned  plate  of  philanthropy  or  charity,  asking  voluntary 
aid  to  stay  evils  the  increase  of  which,  in  the  absence  of 
such  eleemosynary  and  moral  yet  optional  assessments, 
would  result  in  the  more  imperative  levy  of  the  secular  toll- 
gatherer  for  their  eradication.  Human  existence,  in  short, 
pays  a  daily  toll  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  thereby 
alone  is  this  at  best  perilous  passage  rendered  even  com- 
paratively safe.  Under  our  form  of  government  this  law 
of  taxation  shoots  off  into  two  distinct  and  separate  chan- 
nels— lo<  al  and  general.  The  former  relates  to  the  almost 
40 


47°          THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

innumerable  expedients  of  State  levies  for  the  protection  of 
society,  and  the  latter  to  the  more  general  impositions  of 
the  General  Government  for  the  furtherance  of  the  national 
weal.  To  this  last,  with  a  few  important  exceptions,  the 
following  exposition  will  alone  relate ;  and  for  the  purpose 
of  defining  as  nearly  as  possible  the  main  outline  of  the 
present  chapter  were  the  foregoing  words  of  explanation 
offered.  With  a  due  regard  to  relevancy  the  adoption  of  a 
different  course  was  absolutely  impossible.  Taxation  in 
general,  both  local  and  national,  is  brought  in  contact  in 
its  march  with  so  many  opposing  forces,  particularly  the 
joint  agencies  of  capital  and  labor,  that  the  limits  of  the 
present  work  could  not  permit  of  its  treatment  except  as 
more  especially  connected  with  our  national  politics.* 

Taxation,  in  the  abstract,  is  susceptible  of  a  definition 
both  clear  and  perfect.  Neither  intending  to  borrow  from 
the  phraseology  of  the  preceding  industrial  comment  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  to  commit  a  breach  of  propriety  by  the 
continuance  of  that  discussion  in  this  connection  on  the 
other,  taxation,  paradox  though  it  may  seem,  may  be  termed 
protection — in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  term,  however, — 
for  life,  liberty  and  property.  The  restricted  industrial 
policy  of  protection  merely  essays  the  guardianship  of  in- 
dustry, but  the  protection  of  taxation  aims  to  assume  the 
safety  and  success  of  the  entire  body  politic.  For  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  purpose  it  uses  its  assessments  to  de- 
fray the  expenses  of  peace  and  war.  The  nature  of  these 
expenses  is  too  well  known  to  require  a  detailed  explana- 
tion. The  nation  is  in  one  sense  a  corporate  body  of  in- 
dividuals, a  league  for  the  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  each 
and  all  of  its  members.  Like  every  individual  or  associa- 
tion with  an  end  in  view,  a  governmental  corporation  must 
have  its  policy  and  rules  of  .action,  and  these,  moreover, 

*At  an  early  future  day  the  author  proposes  to  devote  an  entire 
volume  to  the  discussion  of  Taxation,  Capital  and  Labor. 


TAXATION.  471 

require  constant  modification.  As  the  man  of  traffic  must 
shape  his  daily  plans  so  as  to  avail  himself  of  the  advantages 
of  a  changing  market,  or  see  his  commercial  edifice  swept 
away  by  the  rush  of  the  onward  current,  so  must  Govern- 
ment mould  its  policy  in  a  manner  to  avail  itself  of  the  op- 
portunities presented  by  the  innovations  of  Christendom,  or 
sink  beneath  the  waves  of  civilization's  onward  march.  To 
this  end,  as  the  imperfection  of  human  reason  is  constantly 
resulting  in  an  honest  difference  as  to  the  legal  and  moral 
binding  force  of  obligations,  and  as  loyal  competition  often 
degenerates  into  lawless  avarice,  thus  opposing  honesty  to 
fraud,  and  as  the  passions  of  man  often  lead  him  to  acts  of 
absolute  violence,  it  is  imperative  that  justice  should  be  ad- 
ministered among  the  people,  and  legal  tribunals  therefore 
must  be  in  constant  existence.  Moreover,  as  in  certain  di- 
rections private  weal  depends  upon  public  prosperity,  and 
as  the  latter  is  to  a  great  extent  measured  by  the  relative 
material  status  of  nations  with  each  other,  internal  improve- 
ments must  be  fostered.  "The  oceans  must  be  married 
with  roads;"  the  lightning  harnessed  to  wires  and  elec- 
tricity be  made  a  postboy ;  the  "  silent  keels  "  must  plough 
the  waters  of  inland  rivers  and  neighboring  if  not  foreign 
seas;  and  every  resource  of  a  nation's  territory  be  brought 
into  perfect  subjection  to  the  will  of  man.  Again,  the 
motor-power  of  the  foregoing  forces  is  education.  Know- 
ledge and  skill  are  the  only  pilots  along  the  sea  of  human 
progress,  and  the  rapidity  of  a  people's  passage  over  this 
endless  ocean  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  their  cultured 
thought.  Institutions  of  learning,  therefore,  must  dot  the 
entire  surface  of  the  national  domain,  that  the  national  in- 
tellect may  be  constantly  reinforced.  Once  more,  "  the 
race  is  not  always  to  the  swift  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong," 
and  along  the  roadside  of  life's  struggling  journey  minds 
peerless  as  well  as  weak,  and  bodies  stout  as  well  as  frail, 
fall  helpless  from  the  ranks.  Humanity  must  not  disown 


47 2          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

itself;  protection  must  be  given  to  its  unfortunates,  and 
asylums  of  refuge  for  its  stricken  children  must  everywhere 
afford  relief.  The  execution  of  these  duties  requires  con- 
stant attention,  and  in  the  recompense  of  their  performance 
lie  the  principal  expenses  of  peace.  But  competing  na- 
tions often  cross  each  other's  path  in  their  friendly  contest 
for  supremacy ;  violations  of  the  international  code  are,  if 
not  proved,  assumed ;  diplomacy  fails  in  its  ministrations ; 
national  honor  is  at  stake ;  argument  gives  way  to  force ; 
and  herein  lie  the  expenses  of  war,  which  Bacon  has  desig- 
nated as  "one  of  the  highest  trials  of  right."  Taxation, 
then,  may  be  said  to  be  the  equivalent  paid  for  the  protec- 
tion of  life,  liberty  and  property. 

Taxation,  to  be  understandingly  considered,  should  be 
classified  and  sub-classified.  Such  classification  is  by  no 
means  a  simple  task,  and  probably  no  effort  in  this  direc- 
tion will  meet  with  universal  approval.  Taxation,  how- 
ever, in  its  method  of  operation,  may  be  said  to  be  direct 
and  indirect,  and  the  objects  which  it  grasps  may  be  styled 
real,  personal  and  individual.  With  this  brief  preliminary 
key,  the  following  classification,  in  connection  with  the 
supplemental  comment  by  way  of  further  explanation,  will 
probably  prove  easy  of  appreciation,  and  possibly  a  con- 
venience. 

TAXES  ARE— 
I.  DIRECT.  II.  INDIRECT. 

Direct  taxes  are —  Indirect   taxes  are  all   per- 
sonal, viz., 

1.  Real,  viz.,  Taxes    upon    Rents,    Voca- 
Taxes  on  Land ;  tions,    Wages    of   Labor, 

2.  Personal,  viz.,  Profits  and  Commodities. 
Income  Taxes ;  The  second  and  the  last 

3.  Individual,  viz.,  two   are   all   included   in 
Capitation  Taxes.  the  term  Excise. 


TAXATION.  473 

Of  these  in  their  order.  And  first  as  to  the  definition 
of  direct,  indirect,  real,  personal  and  individual  taxes; 
and,  second — after  a  view  of  the  powers  granted  by  the 
Constitution  for  their  assessment — a  general  discussion  of 
their  feasibility,  noticing  all  the  subdivisions  which  are 
found  in  the  foregoing  table. 

Direct  taxation  is  that  in  which  the  sum  assessed  is  paid 
directly  by  the  individual  upon  whom  the  assessment  is 
made,  without  any  possibility  of  recourse  upon  third  per- 
sons for  reimbursement.  And,  as  seen  by  the  foregoing 
table,  such  taxation  is  only  of  three  sorts — namely,  taxes 
upon  lands,  incomes  and  individuals. 

Indirect  taxation  may  be  properly  defined  by  saying  that 
it  includes  all  taxes  except  those  laid  upon  lands,  incomes 
and  individuals  ;  that  is,  whenever  the  sum  assessed  may  be, 
so  to  speak,  reassessed  upon  third  persons  by  the  party  upon 
whom  the  original  levy  is  made,  such  taxation  is  indirect. 

Real  taxes  are  those  which  are  laid  upon  what,  in  law, 
is  denominated  real  property — namely,  taxes  upon  lands, 
and  the  buildings  thereto  attached.  The  last  portion  of  this 
definition  is  quite  unnecessary,  except  for  the  benefit  of  the 
unprofessional  reader,  as  the  term  land,  in  law,  always 
includes  and  carries  with  it  everything  attached  to  the  soil. 

Personal  taxes  are  those  which  are  laid  upon  what,  in 
law,  is  styled  personal  property,  and  include  all  species  of 
taxation  except  that  upon  land  (using  the  term  in  its  tech- 
nical, legal  sense)  and  the  single  instance  of  individual 
assessment. 

Individual  taxation  is  that  laid  upon  persons,  and  is 
rightly  termed  either  a  capitation  or  poll  tax. 

The  powers  delegated  by  the  national  Constitution  for  a 
resort  to  these  different  methods  of  taxation  are  found  in 
the  following  words  of  that  instrument,  viz.  : 

"  Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  apportioned 
among  the  several  States  which  may  be  included  within 
40  • 


474        THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

this  Union  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  which 
shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the  whole  number  of  free 
persons,  including  those  bound  to  service  for  a  term  of 
years,  and  excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  three-fifths  of  all 
other  persons. 

"  Congress  shall  have  power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts  and  excises,  but  all  duties,  imposts  and 
excises  shall  be  uniform  throughout  the  United  States. 

"  No  capitation  or  other  direct  tax  shall  be  laid,  unless 
in  proportion  to  the  census  or  enumeration  hereinbefore 
directed  to  be  taken. 

"  No  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported  from 
any  State. 

"  No  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  lay 
any  imposts  or  duties  on  imports  or  exports,"  etc.  etc. 

The  foregoing  provisions  of  the  Constitution  give  to 
both  the  General  and  State  Governments  a  concurrent 
power  of  taxation  in  all  the  forms  indicated  by  the  table 
hereinbefore  given,  with  certain  restrictions  running  against 
each.  The  restrictions  imposed  upon  the  General  Govern- 
ment are — that  no  direct  taxes  (that  is,  either  a  land,  income 
or  capitation  tax)  shall  be  laid  except  upon  a  basis  of  the 
representative  population — namely,  those  qualified  to  exer- 
cise the  elective  franchise;  that  duties,  imposts  and  excises 
shall  be  uniform  throughout  the  United  States ;  that  no 
duty  shall  be  laid  upon  exports ;  and  that  all  indirect  taxes 
(see  Table)  shall  be  laid  with  uniformity.  The  restrictions 
running  against  the  State  governments  are — that  they  shall 
lay  no  burden  upon  any  import  or  export  whatever  without 
the  consent  of  Congress,  except  for  sustaining  the  expense  of 
their  inspection  laws,  and  the  implied  restriction,  by  force 
of  constitutional  law,  that  their  modes  of  taxation  in  other 
directions  shall  not  interfere  with  or  supersede  a  similar 
exercise  of  the  taxing  power  by  national  authority. 

The  way  is  now  opened  for  a  general  discussion  of  the 


TAXATION.  475 

feasibility  of  these  different  methods  of  providing  means 
for  the  support  of  the  body  politic,  descending  in  each 
instance  into  the  various  details  suggested  by  the  main 
inquiry. 

The  prime  and  as  yet  insurmountable  difficulty  attendant 
upon  any  scheme  of  taxation  is  to  secure  a  proper  equali- 
zation of  the  burden  imposed — to  proportion  the  gross  sum 
assessed  among  the  individuals  upon  whom  its  payment  is 
made  obligatory  in  such  a  manner  as  will  not  work  injustice 
to  any  particular  class.  As  already  remarked,  the  history 
of  the  world  has  thus  far  recorded  all  efforts  in  this  direc- 
tion as  comparative  failures.  The  first  obstacle  which  pre- 
sents itself  is  the  basis  upon  which  the  proportion  above 
noted  shall  be  made — the  criterion  by  which  the  extent  of 
the  sacrifice  individuals  should  make  to  government  in  this 
direction  is  to  be  ascertained.  The  solution  of  this  imme- 
diate inquiry  would  furnish  a  key  to  the  entire  situation. 
Its  intricacy  is  sometimes  seemingly  enhanced,  instead 
of  dispelled,  by  time,  but  its  inherent  attractiveness  is 
thereby  increased  instead  of  diminished.  This  necessary 
sacrifice  of  citizens  to  government  which  the  latter  com- 
pels by  taxation  has,  in  most  instances  if  not  universally, 
been  measured  by  the  extent  of  their  possessions,  with- 
out any  increase  of  the  rate  of  taxation,  as  the  amount 
of  such  possessions  exceeded  certain  specified  sums — without 
an  advancing  scale  in  the  ratio  of  assessment.  And  the  cri- 
terion is,  in  the  extreme,  faulty  if  not  entirely  wrong,  for 
it  works  a  manifest  injustice  to  the  poorer  classes.  Ix?t  the 
assessment  of  real  estate  be  instanced  as  an  illustration.  A 
man  of  wealth  owns  a  landed  estate  worth  $50,000. 
Adjoining  his  boundaries  a  poor  man  has,  by  means  of 
frugal  savings  from  the  meagre  income  which  his  manual 
labor  affords  him,  secured  a  humble  cot  and  a  few  rods  of 
ground  worth  $2000.  The  rate  of  taxation,  let  it  be  sup- 
posed, is  $10  upon  every  thousand  of  valuation.  By  the 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

canon  of  assessment  above  noted  the  former  will  pay  a  tax 
of  $500,  and  the  latter  one  of  $20. 

Now,  the  relative  sacrifice  of  the  two  individuals  to  gov- 
ernment is  not  justly  measured  by  the  sums  last  above 
named.  The  mere  criterion  of  the  extent  of  possessions, 
without  any  progressive  qualification,  so  to  speak,  is  not  an 
honest  guide  in  the  premises.  A  man  worth  $50,000  will 
pay  the  taxed  demands  of  government  from  an  income 
which  capital  is  earning  him,  unaided  by  any  manual  assist- 
ance of  his  own ;  while  a  man  worth  $2000  will  pay  such 
demands  from  the  fruit  of  his  manual  labor,  the  results  of 
his  daily  toil,  and  his  sacrifice,  proportionately  speaking,  is 
far  greater  than  that  of  his  fellow-contributor.  The  point, 
moreover,  at  which  the  extent  of  such  sacrifice  begins  to 
lessen  is  that  where  the  capital  or  labor  taxed  is  in  addition 
to  that  which  is  necessary  to  be  employed  for  purposes  of  sub- 
sistence. And — a  logical  and  sensible  sequitur — the  farther 
the  remove  from  this  point  the  less  the  sacrifice.  The  true 
theory  of  economic  law  contemplates  that  no  burden  shall 
ever  be  placed  upon  the  actual  means  of  a  livelihood  ;  and 
for  every  thousand  dollars  of  capital  in  excess  of  that  which 
is  necessary  to  be  employed  for  this  purpose  an  additional 
burden  can  be  imposed  without  increasing  the  relative 
extent  of  the  sacrifice.  The  contribution  comes  from  an 
abundance,  and  the  greater  the  abundance  the  greater  the 
contribution  which  can  be  sacrificed.  It  is  right  at  this 
point  that  we  are  to  approximate,  at  least,  to  a  just  crite- 
rion of  taxation.  The  question  is  not  what  a  man  has,  but 
what  can  he  reasonably  part  with. 

In  addition  to  this  argument  of  proportionate  sacrifice 
there  is  the  argument  of  proportionate  protection.  It  is  a 
common  axiom  of  every-day  life  that  cares  increase  with 
riches.  The  homely  adage  is  not  only  true  in  its  simple 
signification,  but  also  in  a  compound  ratio.  Every  addi- 
tional moiety  of  wealth  not  only  extends  the  field  of  super- 


TAXATION.  477 

visory  labor,  but,  to  reduce  the  thought  to  as  close  a  com- 
pass- as  possible,  as  it  once  more  subdivides,  so  to  speak, 
the  unit  of  attention,  and  as  each  successive  subdivision 
places  the  last  object  of  solicitude,  the  last  moiety  of 
wealth,  one  remove  farther  from  the  unit  of  care  than  its 
predecessor,  this  unit  of  attention  must  be  increased  not 
only  in  an  equal  numerical  ratio  with  the  increase  of  moieties 
of  wealth,  but  also  to  the  further  extent  of  neutralizing  the 
force  of  distance  which  is  incident  to  the  care  demanded  by 
the  last  accession  of  wealth — the  one  farthest  removed  from 
the  original  unit  of  attention.  Now,  this  argument  is 
exactly  pertinent  to  the  question  of  protection  which  prop- 
erty receives  from  taxation.  As  in  the  case  of  individual 
wealth,  not  only  the  more  wealth  the  more  care,  but  care 
compounded  with  every  additional  accumulation,  so  in  the 
case  of  protection  of  property  by  taxation,  not  only  the 
more  property  the  more  protection,  but  protection  com- 
pounded with  every  augmentation  of  property. 

On  these  two  grounds  of  proportionate  sacrifice  and 
proportionate  protection,  taxation  by  valuation  of  pos- 
sessions, without  an  increase  of  the  rate  with  every  certain 
well-defined  increase  of  wealth,  is  not  only  injustice,  but 
absolute  fraud,  and  the  progressive  system  should  be  insti- 
tuted in  its  room. 

Having  disposed  of  the  inquiry  as  to  what  is  the  true 
guide  for  imposing  taxes  in  a  general  sense,  let  those  in  the 
table  hereinbefore  named  be  examined  in  the  light  of  this 
elementary  principle. 

Upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  proper  criterion  is  estab- 
lished by  which  to  ascertain  the  extent  of  individual  sacri- 
fice necessary  to  keep  the  wheels  of  the  body  politic  in 
motion,  direct  taxation,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  a 
tax  upon  luxuries,  is  the  most  practicable  and  equitable 
method  of  making  the  assessment — equitable,  because  it  is 
aimed  directly  at  the  party  from  whom  its  payment  can 


4?8         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

alone  proceed ;  practicable,  because  the  machinery  for  its 
levy  and  collection  is  far  less  intricate  and  much  easier  of 
operation.  And  yet  this  species  of  taxation  is  usually  the 
most  unpopular  with  the  public  of  any  to  which  govern- 
ment ever  resorts.  It  is  thus  unpopular  because  it  presents 
itself  in  no  disguise.  It  is  by  no  means  an  urbane  collector. 
It  employs  no  euphemism  in  its  terms  of  demand,  but 
with  honest  bluntness  says  to  A  or  B,  Pay  me  so  much 
money  from  your  own  pocket  for  the  support  of  govern- 
ment. Humanity,  ever  selfish  of  its  rights,  is  particularly 
so  in  respect  to  the  enforcement  of  claims  which  trench 
upon  its  coffers.  Individual  policy,  indeed,  has  given 
birth  to  a  custom  as  universal  as  its  origin  is  primitive,  of 
entering  a  demurrer  to  the  validity  of  almost  every  direct 
draft  upon  its  exchequer.  The  avenues  thereto  which  are 
most  easy  of  passage  are  those  which  are  indirect  and 
insidious — those  which  are  not  discovered  until  the  wily 
collector  has  made  both  his  entree  and  exit,  taking  with 
him  the  required  tribute.  And  in  most  instances  it  is 
simply  for  the  reason  that  the  people  unwillingly  submit  to 
direct  taxation  that  the  more  indirect  and  unjust  methods 
hereafter  to  be  noticed  are  resorted  to  by  government.  It 
is  simply  because  humanity  will  part  with  one  hundred 
dollars  on  an  indirect  demand  more  willingly  than  it  will 
with  five  dollars  in  response  to  an  immediate  call,  that  the 
mountain  of  injustice,  which  will  appear  in  a  future  connec- 
tion, ever  incident  to  indirect  taxes,  is  suffered  and  allowed. 
Taking  the  fact  of  such  injustice,  in  this  connection,  upon 
trust,  the  extent  of  it  can  be  partially  appreciated  in  the 
collateral  fact  that  five-sixths  of  the  enormous  revenues  of 
the  General  Government  during  the  last  decade  have 
emanated  from  indirect  taxation. 

Descending  to  the  particular  kinds  of  direct  taxation, 
that  upon  land  is  first  in  order.  Our  theory  of  land-taxes 
was  originally  taken  from  the  English  model,  but  has  been 


TAX  A  TIOM  479 

subjected  to  somewhat  material  modifications,  and  should 
suffer  at  least  two  more  very  important  changes. 

The  land-tax  of  England  had  its  origin  in  the  feudal  sys- 
tem. In  1066,  when  William  of  Normandy,  by  the  victory 
of  Hastings,  elected  himself  monarch  of  the  English  realm, 
the  estates  of  the  conquered  people  were  confiscated,  and 
their  evidences  of  title  taken  from  their  designated  deposi- 
taries and  destroyed.  The  conqueror  then  parceled  out 
the  territory  among  his  nobles,  who  in  turn,  by  the  so-called 
process  of  sub-infeudation,  subdivided  it  among  their  ten- 
antry, the  peasant  population.  The  process  of  sub-infeu- 
dation was  neither  a  simple  lease  nor  an  absolute  sale.  It 
was  a  conveyance,  resembling,  more  than  aught  else,  a  per- 
petual lease,  upon  the  condition  that  the  tenant  should  not 
reconvey  except  with  the  permission  of  his  lord ;  and  in  this 
and  many  other  instances  not  necessary  to  mention  the 
tenant  was  required  to  "attorn"  to  his  lord  by  the  payment 
of  certain  stipulated  assessments.  The  lord,  in  turn,  had 
certain  obligations  of  a  similar  nature  to  meet  with  his  sov- 
ereign ;  and  the  duties  of  both  tenant  and  lord  in  this  direc- 
tion, particularly  the  former,  were  measured  by  the  extent 
of  their  peculiar  landed  estates.  These  last,  at  the  acces- 
sion of  the  Conqueror,  were  subjected  to  a  valuation 
throughout  the  realm.  From  ruder  methods  of  canceling 
the  demands  of  this  sort  imposed  by  the  nobles  and  the 
government  a  regular  moneyed  payment  was  finally  adopted, 
but  upon  the  same  continued  basis,  the  extent  of  the  landed 
estate.  The  governmental  valuation  of  the  English  estates, 
begun  by  the  Norman  usurper  in  1066,  has  ever  since  been 
continued,  and  its  principal  peculiarity  is  its  fixedness. 
The  valuations  have  stood  for  years  and  decades  without 
change  ;  so  that,  with  the  continual  increase  in  the  value 
of  land  for  the  greater  portion  of  the  time  since  the  Norman 
conquest,  the  landed  aristocrats  have  really  been  taxed 
upon  only  a  very  small  j>ortion  of  their  estates.  The  rcve- 


480         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

nue  of  the  Crown  has  been  raised  in  more  indirect  and 
unjust  methods.  This  system  of  valuation  is  incident  to 
nearly  all  the  states  of  the  Continent,  excepting  France. 
That  of  Germany,  however,  is  very  much  perfected,  and 
the  government  surveys  are  very  frequently  made. 

This  system  of  land-tax,  based  upon  valuation,  is  the 
American  system,  with  the  exception  that  our  valuations  or 
assessments  are,  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  at  least, 
made  annually.  A  badge  of  the  indefensible  favoritism 
shown  by  the  English  Government  to  its  landed  aristocrats, 
however,  has  unwittingly,  as  it  were,  crept  into  our  system 
of  land  taxation — namely,  the  principle  of  valuing  or  assess- 
ing land  for  about  one-half  of  its  actual  value.  There  is 
not  a  shadow  of  defence  or  reason  in  such  a  policy.  There 
is  no  tax  so  just  and  feasible  as  a  land-tax — just,  because  it 
receives  the  first  and  best  protection  of  government ;  feasi- 
ble, because  it  presents  a  more  stable  basis  upon  which  to 
predicate  a  criterion  by  which  to  judge  the  proper  amount 
of  sacrifice  the  owner  can  fitly  make  than  any  other  species 
of  wealth.  And  by  virtue  of  this  element  of  appreciability 
the  tax  should  be  laid  upon  its  exact  market  value,  and  not  a 
reduced  one.  Unimproved  property,  moreover,  should  not 
escape  the  burden,  but  be  treated  in  the  same  relative  man- 
ner. This,  and  the  establishment  of  the  progressive  system, 
as  seen  in  the  illustration  of  the  elementary  principle  here- 
inbefore discussed,  and  shown  to  be  necessary  for  the  pre- 
vention of  injustice,  are  the  two  changes  already  alleged  as 
imperative  in  our  system  of  land  taxation.  We  would  not 
argue,  with  Quesnai,  the  founder  of  the  novel  French  agri- 
cultural system  of  political  economy,  that  all  taxes  should 
be  laid  upon  land,  because,  as  he  alleges,  agriculture  is  the 
prime  business  of  the  world,  and  land  the  ultimate  fund  for 
the  payment  of  all  taxes ;  but  certain  it  is  that  it  does  not 
bear  its  just  share  of  the  burden  of  taxation  in  the  United 
States. 


TAXATION.  481 

The  next  species  of  direct  taxation  is  th*>  income-tax. 
In  theory  it  is  perfectly  defensible,  but  in  practice  it  is  both 
unjust  and  imperfect.  If  the  difficulty  could  be  avoided  of 
submitting  to  the  dishonest  returns  which  in  a  great  num- 
ber, if  not  a  majority,  of  instances  are  made  to  Govern- 
ment, there  would  be  no  defect  in  its  practical  operation 
except  that  of  its  inquisitorial  character.  But  gross  dishon- 
esty has  ever  attended  very  many  returns  of  personal 
income,  partly  to  avoid  the  payment  of  the  tax  and  partly 
by  reason  of  an  unwillingness  to  disclose  to  the  public  the 
exact  status  of  the  present  earnings  of  one's  capital  or  labor. 
This  difficulty,  moreover,  cannot  be  avoided.  Loyalty  to 
conscience  cannot  be  compelled  by  human  ordinances,  and 
such  loyalty  is  the  sole  procurer  of  correct  statements  of 
income.  There  is  no  other,  possible  means  by  which  such 
correctness  can  be  secured.  Property  in  income  is  entirely 
different  f*.  .-.  property  in  land.  The  first  is  invisible, 
untangible — the  last  is  both  visible  and  tangible.  The  for- 
mer can  be  concealed — the  latter  never.  This  dishonesty 
in  returns  works  an  open,  unblushing  wrong  upon  those 
who  fairly  expose  the  extent  of  their  income  to  the  inspec- 
tion of  Government.  This  species  of  dishonesty,  however, 
has  a  show  of  reason,  though  not,  of  course,  an  excuse. 
There  are  very  few  individuals,  except  those  who  are  mor- 
bidly exclusive  and  miserly,  who  will,  object,  save  for  th 
purpose  of  avoiding  the  levy,  of  disclosing,  when  fairly 
necessary,  the  extent  of  past  accumulation  pf  invested 
wealth.  But  every  individual  may,  for  other  reasons 
besides  the  one  above  noted,  desire  to  conceal  the  extent 
of  his  accruing  income.  And  such  reasons  are  both  ten- 
able and  wholesome.  They  are  of  a  purely  politic  charac- 
ter. In  a  score  of  collateral  instances  an  honest  exposure 
of  annual  earnings  of  either  capital  or  labor  would  militate 
against  future  success  in  this  direction,  and  no  one  can  be 
rightly  called  upon  to  thus  voluntarily  jeopardize  his  own 
41  V 


482         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

interests.  It  is  contrary  to  the  genius  and  spirit  of  repub- 
lican institutions,  opposed  to  the  most  valued  traditions  of 
the  United  States ;  and  if  for  no  other  cause  the  inquisito- 
rial feature  of  an  income-tax  should  always  deny  it  a  place 
in  our  economic  policy. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  objections,  income  taxation, 
as  generally  laid,  and  particularly  the  system  which  is  now 
expiring  by  limitation  in  the  United  States,  lays  itself  open 
to  unanswerable  criticism  in  other  directions.  The  restricted 
general  system  is  vulnerable  upon  only  one  other  point,  but 
as  confined  to  this  country  it  is  faulty  in  two  additional 
particulars.  The  general  abstract  objection  above  noted  is 
a  legacy  bequeathed  by  the  English  law — namely,  the 
exclusion  of  the  progressive  feature  from  the  scheme  of 
income  taxation.  The  argument,  given  in  full  in  a  prior 
connection,  of  proportionate  sacrifice  and  proportionate 
protection  will  not  be  here  repeated.  It  is  that  argument, 
however,  to  which  reference  is  here  intended,  and  the  force 
of  it  comes  directly  home  to  the  immediate  topic  of 
investigation.  The  policy  of  England  condemns  the  pro- 
gressive feature  in  all  schemes  of  taxation.  And  in  so 
doing  she  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  her 
institutions  and  her  time-honored  traditions.  The  English 
Government,  notwithstanding  its  many  virtues,  is  a  govern- 
ment of  aristocrats,  and  not  of  the  masses — a  guardian  of 
wealth,  and  not  of  poverty.  It  bars  the  system  of  pro- 
gressive taxation  from  its  statute-book  by  virtue,  as  it 
alleges,  of  the  fact  that  the  scheme  confiscates  the  property 
of  the  wealthy  classes.  The  law-makers  of  England  in 
theory,  in  this  position,  are,  as  already  stated,  entirely  con- 
sistent, but  they  have  no  right  to  yoke  consistency  with  an 
abuse  of  terms.  "  Confiscation"  is  not  the  proper  term  to 
fortify  their  argument.  ''We  foster  wealth,  and  not 
poverty,  capital,  and  not  labor;  therefore  we  give  to  the 
former  the  greater  protection  and  the  lesser  burden."  This 


TAXATION.  483 

is  the  true  and  consistent  ground  of  occupation  for  English 
economists.  But  it  is  tainted  with  injustice.  It  is  not 
based  upon  the  equality  of  the  human  brotherhood,  and  for 
the  reasons  adduced  in  the  exposition  of  the  principles  of 
proportionate  sacrifice  and  proportionate  protection,  all 
schemes  of  income  taxation  should  be  progressive ;  that  is, 
at  well-defined  points  in  the  rising  scale  of  property  in 
incomes  the  rate  of  taxation  should  be  increased.  This 
progressive  feature  was  incident  to  the  original  tax  law  upon 
incomes  now  expiring  by  limitation  in  this  country,  but  the 
forces  of  wealth  marshaled  themselves  against  its  continu- 
ance, and  the  provision  was  unwisely  and  unjustly  repealed. 

As  confined  to  the  United  States,  however,  the  scheme 
of  income  taxation  by  which  the  people  have  been  assessed 
opposes  itself  to  an  argument  of  far  greater  gravity.  It 
arrays  itself  against  the  sanctity  of  our  organic  law.  It  is 
unqualifiedly  unconstitutional.  Our  table,  hereinbefore 
given,  places  an  income-tax  under  the  head  of  direct  tax- 
ation, and  there  it  unqualifiedly  belongs.  No  authority  of 
any  weight  has  ever  denied  the  proposition.  Reference  to 
the  constitutional  provisions  already  quoted  will  show  that 
all  direct  taxes  must  be  laid  upon  the  basis  of  the  repre- 
sentative population,  as  distinguished  from  the  one  other 
general  canon  therein  given  of  uniformity.  The  income- 
tax,  however,  was  laid  upon  the  basis  of  uniformity,  with- 
out regard  to  the  extent  of  the  representative  population, 
all  incomes  having  been  levied  upon  wherever  found. 

The  last  of  the  direct  taxes  is  a  capitation  or  poll  tax. 
This  tax  is  incident  to  some  of  the  States  as  a  prerequi- 
site for  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  but  is  un- 
advisable.  Its  inexpediency  consists  in  the  impossibility 
of  equally  apportioning  the  burden,  of  correctly  ascertain- 
ing the  proper  extent  of  needed  individual  sacrifice  in  this 
direction.  It  has  always  been  laid  upon  an  arbitrary 
basis.  William  III.  imposed  this  tax  upon  his  English  sub- 


484          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

jects  in  respect  to  their  rank ;  and  in  consideration  of  the 
aristocratic  form  of  the  English  Government,  if  the  theory 
was  not  slain  in  practice,  it  was  a  most  equitable  manner 
of  making  the  assessment.  The  sovereigns  of  France  have 
also  made  these  peculiar  levies  upon  the  same  basis.  In 
the  United  States  they  have  been  laid  at  so  much  a  poll  or 
head,  without  any  deviation  in  respect  to  the  wealth  of  the 
contributor.  But  as  a  prerequisite  for  voting  it  is  certainly 
a  greater  benefit  for  a  man  to  vote  who  has  property  to  be 
protected  by  the  legislation  of  the  recipient  of  his  ballot, 
than  for  one  who  has  no  property  whatever ;  and  the  same 
principle  is  pertinent  to  all  the  intermediate  stages  of 
wealth.  And  still  more  difficult  the  question,  to  be  here- 
after discussed,  Has  not  the  property-holder  a  superior 
right  to  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  at  least  so  far 
as  tax  laws  are  concerned,  than  one  who  is  destitute  or 
nearly  destitute  of  wealth  ?  The  equitable  adjustment  of  a 
capitation-tax  is  impossible,  and  such  a  levy  seemingly 
ought  not  to  be  deemed  worthy  of  toleration. 

To  conclude  this  examination  of  direct  taxes,  the  only 
feasible  one,  and  the  one  most  feasible  and  just  of  all  taxes 
whatsoever,  is  a  land-tax.  It  is  not  insidious,  it  is  appre- 
ciable of  an  exact,  equitable  adjustment,  and  it  seizes  an 
object  which  receives  the  greatest  material  protection 
afforded  by  government. 

The  discussion  of  the  subject  of  indirect  taxation,  now 
in  order,  as  the  terra  indicates,  opens  a  field  of  inquiry  in 
many  respects  far  more  inappreciable  than  that  which  has 
been  just  dismissed.  The  vital  objection  to  indirect  tax- 
ation is  the  uncertainty  of  its  character.  As  it  is  laid 
entirely  upon  the  species  of  property  known  as  personal, 
it  is  utterly  impossible  to  determine  upon  whom  the  burden 
.will  fall,  further  than  the  very  general  statement  that  the 
consumer  or  user  of  the  subject  of  the  assessment  will  be 
the  ultimate  source  of  payment.  In  other  words,  the  class 


TAXATION.  485 

of  individuals  can  be  defined,  but  not  the  several  separate 
persons.  This  feature  of  indirect  taxation  robs  it  of  the 
fundamental  requisite  of  a  just  and  wholesome  system — 
namely,  the  inability  of  government  to  determine  the 
extent  of  sacrifice  which  the  real  contributor  should  be 
called  upon  to  make.  Indefinite  in  inception,  insidious 
and  deceptive  in  operation,  uncertain  in  respect  to  the 
party  from  whom  it  will  eventually  compel  tribute,  this 
method  of  providing  means  for  the  support  of  government 
is  an  unblushing  disseminator  of  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion. As  will  hereafter  appear,  this  system  of  taxation, 
for  the  most  part,  lays  its  hand  upon  the  ordinary  means 
of  subsistence.  Now,  the  poorer  classes,  in  this  and  all 
other  countries,  very  greatly  exceed  in  number  those  of  the 
wealthy  and  independent.  The  aggregate  consumption  of 
the  necessaries  of  life,  consequently,  is  very  much  greater 
in  the  former  than  in  the  latter  class ;  and  as  indirect  taxes 
fix  their  hold,  for  the  most  part,  upon  these  subjects  of 
assessment,  by  far  the  greatest  portion  of  the  levies  of 
government  by  this  peculiar  method  are  borne  by  the 
followers  of  manual  toil.  Argument  is  unnecessary  to 
prove  the  injustice  of  such  results.  As  stated  in  a  prior 
connection,  five-sixths  of  the  enormous  revenues  of  the 
Government  since  1861  have  eventuated  from  indirect 
taxes ;  and  in  the  light  of  the  general  principles  above 
maintained,  which  will  soon  receive  a  detailed  exposition, 
the  wrongs  that  have  been  inflicted  upon  the  laboring  por- 
tion of  our  population  can  be  partially  imagined,  though 
by  no  means  realized. 

Passing  now  to  a  very  brief  discussion  of  the  several 
kinds  of  indirect  taxes,  as  seen  in  the  table  hereinbefore 
given,  the  first  in  order  is  a  tax  upon  rents,  or  what  is 
sometimes  known  as  a  house-tax.  Although  in  some 
respects  apparently  just,  the  better  opinion  appears  to 
pronounce  it  unadvisable  and  inexpedient.  It  has  never 
41  • 


486          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS, 

been  adopted  to  any  great  extent  without  producing  con- 
clusive evidence,  not  of  theoretical,  but  of  practical  unfair- 
ness. And  the  unfairness  consists  in  the  inability  of  gov- 
ernment to  measure  the  means  of  the  party  who  will  ulti- 
mately respond  to  its  call.  It  is  a  very  specious  argu- 
ment to  say  that  the  house  a  man  rents  is  the  very  best 
exponent  of  his  means,  but  the  position  fails  to  afford  a 
just  criterion  for  laying  a  tax,  in  this  country  at  least. 
A  man  with  a  large  family  will  of  course  require  a  larger 
house  than  a  man  with  a  small  one ;  and  yet  the  former 
may — in  all  probability  will — by  the  simple  reason  of 
the  extent  of  his  family,  be  possessed  of  much  more 
limited  means  than  the  latter.  The  spirit  and  genius  of 
our  institutions  assume  to  encourage  rather  than  prohibit 
an  augmentation  of  our  population ;  but  a  house-tax,  laid 
indiscriminately  save  with  a  view  to  the  rental  value  of  the 
house,  would  assess  a  man  for  complying  with  one  of  the 
principal  features  of  our  governmental  policy.  It  would 
punish  him  by  an  amercement  for  lending  aid  to  the 
furtherance  of  a  principle  which  Government  assumes  to 
foster.  The  English  economists  answer  this  argument,  so 
far  as  Great  Britain  is  concerned,  with  entire  conclusive- 
ness  and  consistency.  A  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  Mal- 
thus,  as  already  explained,  in  respect  to  the  increase  of 
population  and  throwing  the  shield  of  government  over  the 
rich  instead  of  the  poor,  John  Stuart  Mill  rightly  speaks  for 
England  when  he  says,  in  response  to  the  injustice  of  a 
house-tax  above  noted,  that  "the  having  of  a  large  family, 
so  far  as  concerns  the  public  interest,  is  a  thing  rather  to  be 
discouraged  than  promoted."  It  is  with  a  very  poor  grace 
that  any  one  may  style  the  remarks  of  so  eminent  a  states- 
man and  sincere  a  philanthropist  as  Mr.  Mill  inhuman,  but 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  allow  the  justice  of  his  position. 
Francis  Bowen  answers  him  with  more  truth  than  jest  when 
he  says,  "In  this  country,  apart  from  the  ridicule  which 


TAXATION.  487 

would  follow  the  proposal  of  such  a  law,  a  tax  upon  bache- 
lors would  be  far  more  equitable  than  a  fine  for  having 
children."' 

As  already  stated,  taxes  upon  rents,  or  house-taxes,  have 
never  met  with  public  favor.  The  original  English  house- 
tax  was  laid  at  a  stated  sum  per  window,  and  brought  upon 
its  author  the  charge  of  making  a  levy  upon  daylight. 
Another  form,  adopted  by  the  Irish  law,  was  an  assessment 
of  a  fixed  sum  upon  every  hearth,  and  an  historic  writer 
records  the  fact  that  it  quenched  the  fires  in  more  than  half 
the  cots  of  Ireland.  This  species  of  taxation  is  but  little 
known  in  this  country.  The  report  of  the  recent  commis- 
sion appointed  to  devise  a  scheme  of  State  taxation  for  New 
York,  which  is  based,  in  a  great  degree,  upon  the  economic 
principles  of  Adam  Smith — which  are  wholly  irrelevant  to 
the  needs  of  the  American  people — incorporates  a  house- 
tax  into  the  scheme  which  it  recommends  for  adoption. 
But,  for  the  reasons  given  in  our  remarks  upon  indirect 
taxation  in  general,  it  appears  unworthy  of  toleration.  Its 
uncertainty  and  indefiniteness,  both  as  to  rightly  estimating 
the  extent  of  the  needed  sacrifice,  and  in  respect  to  ascer- 
taining the  person  upon  whom  the  burden  would  fall, 
coupled  with  the  injustice  it  would  work  in  the  case  of 
large  families,  furnish  a  sufficient  argument  against  the 
scheme.  Innovations  in  our  tax  laws  should  tend  toward 
direct  instead  of  indirect  assessments. 

Taxes  upon  vocations  are  next  in  order.  For  the  most 
part  they  appear  in  the  garb  of  a  levy  for  a  license  to  follow 
particular  callings;  but  as  such  taxes,  together  with  those 
upon  the  profits  of  business,  ultimately  fasten  themselves 
upon  the  commodities  with  which  the  licensed  person 
deals,  and  are  consequently  paid  by  the  consumer,  their 
examination  may  be  properly  merged  into  the  investigation 
of  taxes  upon  commodities.  Comment  upon  the  last  will 
be  equally  pertinent  to  the  first.  Before  engaging  upon 


488         THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

that  subject,  however,  a  word  in  respect  to  taxes  upon  the 
wages  of  labor  will  be  suffered. 

If  taxes  upon  labor  are  to  be  tolerated  at  all,  there  is  no 
more  proper  method  of  making  the  assessment  than  to  lay 
it  upon  the  actual  rermmeration  which  labor  receives.  The 
extent  of  the  laborer's  means  are  in  this  manner  pretty 
nearly  appreciable,  and  there  is  a  certainty  and  directness 
in  the  scheme  which  renders  it  highly  advisable.  It  is  cer- 
tainly far  preferable  to  the  present  burden  imposed  upon 
our  laboring  classes,  as  seen  in  the  tax  which  they  pay  upon 
articles  of  consumption,  resulting  from  our  system  of  indi- 
rect assessments ;  for  in  this  way  they  undoubtedly  bear  a 
good  deal  more  than  a  just  proportion  of  the  public  ex- 
pense. A  free  trader  will  interpose  a  plea  in  this  connec- 
tion :  "Abolish  your  tariff."  Of  that  when  taxes  upon 
commodities  shall  be  in  order.  But  save  in  the  case  of  the 
direst  needs  of  Government,  and  then  only  after  a  very 
liberal  minimum  has  been  exempted,  this  discussion  denies 
the  right  to  lay  a  tax  upon  manual  toil.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  necessity  for  such  a  course  at  the  present  time  in 
this  country,  and  the  heavy  tribute  which  labor  has  paid  to 
Government  for  the  few  years  last  past  by  means  of  indi- 
rect taxation,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  treatment  of  a  tax  on 
commodities,  stands  as  a  monument  of  national  wrong  and 
oppression. 

The  term  excise  is  a  generic  one,  and  includes  taxes  upon 
profits,  vocations  and  commodities.  The  first  two,  as 
already  stated,  by  reason  of  their  absorption,  so  to  speak, 
by  the  latter,  are  not  worthy  of  a  separate  consideration. 
Their  discussion  is  here  merged  into  that  of  a  tax  upon 
commodities,  and  the  following  comment  also,  by  virtue 
of  the  opening  sentence  of  this  paragraph,  may  be  looked 
upon  as  an  examination  of  excise  taxation. 

A  tax  upon  commodities,  in  the  great  majority  of  in- 
stances, only  refers  to  those  which  enter  into  general  con 


TAXATION.  489 

sumption.  This  scheme  of  taxation  appears  to  have  origi- 
nated in  the  inability  of  government  to  ascertain  the  income 
or  revenue  of  individuals.  The  theory  is  that  as  the  returns 
from  private  labor  and  capital  are  not  appreciable  by  gov- 
ernment, a  burden  placed  upon  consumable  commodities, 
a  tax  upon  the  articles  which  enter  into  the  requisites  of 
both  ordinary  and  expensive  living,  will  justly  proportion 
the  general  burden  among  the  masses.  Such  a  scheme 
admits  of  several  methods,  or  rather  plans,  of  adjustment. 
If  the  burden  laid  upon  those  articles  which  only  form  a 
part  of  the  requisites  for  expensive  living  is  relatively 
greater  than  that  imposed  upon  commodities  consumed  by 
the  poor,  the  tax  is  more  equitably  distributed  :  but  even 
then  it  works  an  injustice. 

Consumable  commodities  may  be  divided  into  three 
great  classes — namely,  necessaries,  comforts  and  luxuries. 
The  first  consists  of  articles  which  are  absolutely  indispen- 
sable for  the  maintenance  of  existence;  the  last  two  are 
dependent  solely  upon  custom.  Such  custom,  moreover,  is 
dependent  upon  national  habit  and  individual  status.  What 
would  be  a  comfort  or  luxury  in  one  country  would  be  a 
simple  necessity  in  another.  The  article  of  wearing  ap- 
parel may  be  cited  as  an  illustration.  The  inhabitants  of 
the  East,  in  pursuance  of  a  usage,  induced  by  climatic  and 
other  causes,  which  antedates  the  memory  of  man  in  its 
adoption,  require  but  a  small  amount  of  covering.  The 
national  habit  of  the  United  States,  totally  opposite  in  its 
character,  would  consequently  render  the  plainest  necessity 
here  an  undoubted  luxury  among  the  Australian  natives. 
In  reference  to  individual  status  also,  the  different  grades 
of  wealth,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  social  position  con- 
sidered indispensably  incident  thereto,  artificial  and  ephem- 
eral though  it  may  or  may  not  be,  make  a  luxury  for  one 
an  unqualified  necessity  for  another. 

Now,  the  difficulty  which  presents  itself  at  the  outset  of 
v  2 


49°         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

this  scheme  of  commodity  taxation  is  at  this  point  fore- 
shadowed— that  of  so  adjusting  the  burden  as  to  draw  with 
equitable  proportion  from  all  consumers.  The  peculiar 
facts,  as  stated  in  the  next  preceding  paragraph,  render  such 
an  adjustment  absolutely  impossible.  The  usual  canon  of 
taxation,  it  is  true,  is  to  tax  necessaries  not  at  all,  comforts 
lightly,  and  luxuries  heavily.  But  just- here  is  the  embar- 
rassment. What  is  a  luxury  to  one  is  but  a  comfort  to 
another,  and  what  is  a  comfort  to  a  second  is  but  a  necessity 
to  a  third.  The  impracticability  of  an  income-tax  in  one 
sense,  at  least,  is  made  plainly  apparent  in  this  connection. 
In  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  canon  which  directs  no 
tax  upon  necessaries,  the  originators  of  this  tax  law  an- 
nounce an  exemption  of  such  articles  from  its  operation  by 
the  establishment  of  a  minimum  of  income  which  shall  be 
absolved  from  all  burden — by  the  declaration  that  a  certain 
number  of  dollars  will  purchase  all  the  annual  necessaries 
which  any  and  every  man  may  stand  in  need  of.  The  posi- 
tion is  nothing  more  or  less  than  blind  assumption. 

Again,  the  relative  difference  in  the  returns  which* the 
same  rate  of  taxation  will  yield  from  these  different  classes 
of  commodities  presents  another  difficulty.  A  small  ratio 
of  taxation  on  necessaries  and  comforts  will  eventuate  in 
greater  returns  than  a  larger  one  ;  but  in  the  case  of  luxuries 
the  greater  the  rate  the  more  abundant  the  tribute.  This 
antithesis  may  seem  hardly  tenable  at  first  thought,  but  a 
little  reflection  will  fully  corroborate  the  statement.  Neces- 
saries and  comforts  are  sought  after  solely  on  account  of 
their  intrinsic  worth,  and  not  for  any  collateral  reason, 
such  as  the  gratification  of  pride,  vanity  or  caprice.  The 
masses  avail  themselves  of  the  benefits  of  their  possession, 
and  use  whenever  and  wherever  possible ;  and  the  extent  of 
this  patronage  of  the  masses  is  measured  by  the  degree  of 
self-denial  which  their  limited  incomes  compel  them  to 
practice.  If  necessaries  and  comforts  are  cheap,  the  masses 


TAXATION.  491 

will  appropriate  them  largely ;  if  dear,  they  will  make  their 
acquaintance  only  to  the  extent  of  their  restricted  means. 
By  force  of  these  facts,  a  low  rate  of  taxation  on  these  two 
classes  of  consumable  commodities  will  yield  a  larger  rev- 
enue to  Government  than  a  high  one ;  and  down  to  a  very 
minimum  point  the  less  the  ratio  of  taxation  the  more  aug- 
mented the  revenue.  Let  the  article  of  coffee  be  instanced 
as  an  illustration.  Tax  it  fifty  cents  per  pound,  and  only 
the  comparatively  restricted  wealthy  class  will  continue  its 
use  to  any  considerable  degree.  This  class  will  average 
about  one-tenth  of  our  population.  Now,  to  reduce  the 
problem  to  a  mathematical  solution,  let  a  certain  quantity 
(any  quantity  will  serve  the  illustration)  of  coffee  be  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  annual  consumption  of  this  article  by 
this  one-tenth  of  our  inhabitants — say  one  thousand  pounds. 
With  a  tax  imposed  of  fifty  cents  per  pound,  the  revenue  to 
Government  would  be  five  hundred  dollars.  But  put  the 
Government  burden  at  ten  cents  per  pound,  and  the  con- 
sumption of  coffee  will  be  universal ;  the  remaining  nine- 
tenths  of  the  population  will  place  it  upon  their  list  of 
household  stores,  and  the  annual  consumption  by  the 
hypothesis  will  be  ten  thousand  pounds ;  and  with  a  tax  of 
ten  cents  per  pound  the  Government  revenue  will  be  one 
thousand  dollars  instead  of  five  hundred  dollars  when  the 
rate  of  taxation  was  five  times  greater. 

Both  English  and  American  history  furnishes  abundant 
proofs  of  the  position.  After  the  adoption  of  free  trade  by 
England  in  1845,  the  duty  upon  sugar  (which,  as  England 
was  not  a  producer  of  sugar,  was  not  protective,  but  merely 
a  tax)  was  decreased  one-half.  Subsequent  to  that  period 
England's  consumption  of  sugar  increased  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  yielded  a  revenue 
of  seven  millions  sterling,  against  one  of  five  millions  ster- 
ling before  the  customs  duty  was  diminished.  The  Ameri- 
can Morrill  tari/T  of  1861  laid  a  duty  upon  some  articles 


492          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

not  produced  in  this  country  of  about  fifty  per  cent,  ad 
valorem.  In  the  light  of  a  true  policy,  which  looked  at 
that  period  to  the  realization  of  the  largest  amount  of 
revenue,  it  was  a  most  egregious  violation  of  economic  law, 
and  Congress  seems  to  have  learned  the  truth  wholly  by 
accident.  In  1867,  with  the  war  closed  and  future  increase 
of  expenditure  made  no  longer  probable,  the  rates  of  impost 
upon  these  articles  were  reduced,  upon  the  hypothesis  that 
a  smaller  amount  of  revenue  would  be  returned.  A  year 
later  Congress  was  astounded  at  the  fact  that  the  returns  of 
the  reduced  tariff  had  not  only  exceeded  the  Treasury's 
estimates,  but  also,  in  a  relative  sense,  those  of  the  former 
and  higher  impost ;  and  every  subsequent  year,  with  but 
one  or  two  exceptions  at  most,  the  report  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  has  conveyed  to  Congress  the  unaccountable 
intelligence  that  his  estimates  of  receipts  for  the  regular 
fiscal  year  have  been  considerably  below  the  actual  returns. 
Again,  these  excessive  rates  of  taxation  upon  necessaries 
and  comforts,  upon  articles  in  common  use,  are  an  offer  of 
a  premium  upon  fraud.  Take,  for  an  illustration,  the  tax 
on  whisky  of  the  early  portion  of  the  last  decade.  It  may 
provoke  a  smile  to  see  this  article  seemingly  classed  under 
the  head  of  necessaries  or  comforts,  but  the  generality  of 
its  use  warrants  its  citation  in  proof  of  the  present  argu- 
ment. Prior  to  the  war  the  annual  production  of  this 
article  in  the  United  States  was  about  one  hundred  millions 
of  gallons.  The  first  tax  of  twenty  cents  a  gallon  yielded 
a  yearly  revenue  of  about  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  A  sub- 
sequent tax  of  two  dollars  per  gallon  resulted  in  an  annual 
rfivenue  return  of  about  fourteen  millions  of  dollars ;  but 
.with  ,t^e  reduced  tax  of  fifty  cents  a  gallon  in  1869  the 
yearly  revenue  from  whisky  made  the  enormous  jump  of 
over  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  Now,  the  production  of 
whisky  was  at  nc«  tirae  diminished  during  the  interval  of 
j 860-68,  and  the  result  ,of  the  .excessive  impost  will  be  seen 


TAXATION.  493 

to  be — fourteen  millions  of  dollars  representing  the  reve- 
nue, one  hundred  millions  of  gallons  the  production,  and 
two  dollars  per  gallon  the  tax — that  the  facturers  or  dealers 
added  the  amount  of  the  tax  to  their  price,  paid  the  Gov- 
ernment fourteen  cents  per  gallon  instead  of  two  dollars, 
and  pocketed  the  balance,  less  the  cost  of  production  and 
the  transaction  of  business. 

These  enormous  frauds  were  perpetrated  in  three  ways. 
The  Government  inspectors  were  paid  five  dollars  per  day 
for  watching  the  distilleries  and  compelling  honest  returns 
of  the  product.  It  was  an  easy  matter  for  the  distiller  to 
pay  the  inspector  fifty  dollars  per  day,  and  gauge  his  returns 
by  the  elasticity  of  the  combined  conscience  of  the  two. 
And  it  was  done.  Moreover,  thousands  of  petty  stills  were 
running  in  back  cellars  and  secluded  localities,  which  failed 
to  offer  the  faithful  Government  watchmen  any  partnership 
in  their  business,  and  many  a  brawny  arm  was  constantly 
pulling  an  oar  from  Canada  to  American  waters,  with  a 
package  of  whisky  stowed  away  for  ballast  that  never  paid 
a  dollar  of  either  tariff  or  excise  tribute  to  Government. 
In  this  manner  Government  furnished  the  means  whereby 
both  it  and  the  people  were  robbed  of  millions  of  dollars 
by  a  class  whose  paucity  of  number  was  only  equaled  by 
their  dishonesty.  The  advertisement  on  the  part  of  the 
former,  however,  of  a  desire  to  be  swindled  presented 
terms  too  tempting  to  hope  for  universal  indifference  in 
respect  to  their  acceptance. 

Passing  to  the  last  branch  of  the  antithetical  proposition 
under  discussion,  that  the  greater  the  rate  of  taxation  u|>on 
luxuries  the  greater  the  returns  of  revenue,  very  little  need 
be  said.  The  truth  of  the  allegation  is  susceptible  of  easy 
proof.  The  point  received  an  inferential  elucidation  when 
"  Money  and  Currency  "  were  discussed  in  the  first  chapter 
of  this  treatise.  Unlike  necessaries  and  comforts,  luxuries 
are  not  sought  after  on  the  score  of  their  intrinsic  worth. 

42 


494         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

They  are  obtained,  for  the  most  part,  simply  to  please  the 
eye,  gratify  the  taste  and  answer  the  desire  for  ostentation 
and  display.  Their  use  and  consumption  are  governed 
entirely  by  the  code  of  fashion,  and  the  cardinal  doctrine 
of  this  code  is  the  employment  of  articles  which  bear  the 
impress  of  scarcity  or  costliness — either  one  or  the  other 
alone  or  both  combined.  Their  beauty  or  intrinsic  worth 
is  not  the  prime  requisite  which  secures  the  patronage  of 
the  fashionable  world.  Both  beautiful  and  useful  many  of 
these  articles  are,  it  is  true,  but  the  attributes  first  above 
named  are  what  afford  them  an  acquaintance  with  the  devo- 
tees of  fashion  and  the  possessors  of  wealth.  Every-day 
life  illustrates  the  truthfulness  of  the  position.  The  fre- 
quent changes  in  fashionable  costume  and  accompaniments 
are  based  upon  this  one  solitary  idea.  Novelties  are  placed 
in  the  market  by  the  jeweler  or  the  modiste  at  a  really  fic- 
titious price ;  and  simply  because  they  are  novel  and  costly, 
the  subjects  of  fashion  appropriate  them,  not  only  willingly, 
but  eagerly,  and  that  frequently  in  open  violation  of  the 
plainest  rules  of  really  cultured  and  correct  taste.  The 
shocking  burlesque  upon  female  attire  which  has  character- 
ized some  of  the  costumes  of  the  last  decade  lend  their 
influence  to  the  support  of  our  general  allegation.  The 
moment,  however,  these  novelties  become  common,  the 
instant  competition  reduces  their  price  to  its  legitimate 
commercial  standard,  the  code  of  fashion  is  violated,  their 
association  with  the  wealthy  ceases,  and  the  art  of  the 
modiste  and  costumer  is  again  brought  into  requisition  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  mandates  of  this  capricious  and  purely 
artificial  law.  Let  an  hypothesis  be  made  from  some  of 
the  principal  articles  of  Fashion's  toilet — gold,  pearl  and 
diamond  jewelry,  and  dress  goods  of  silk,  satin  and  lace. 
Now,  if  by  some  unexpected  discovery  of  immense  beds 
of  gold  and  fields  of  pearls  and  diamonds  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  new  and  utilizing  process  of  facture  on  the  other, 


TAXATION.  495 

whereby  all  of  these  commodities  could  be  furnished  to  the 
consumer  at  trivial  or  ordinary  rates,  they  would  immedi- 
ately become  common  in  the  wardrobe  of  the  masses,  and 
be  as  summarily  banished  from  the  trousseau  of  the  fash- 
ionable and  the  wealthy. 

With  these  facts  in  mind  a  moment's  reflection  will  show 
that  a  high  rate  of  taxation  upon  these  articles  of  real  luxury 
will  not  materially  decrease  their  consumption,  for  they  are, 
in  the  great  majority  of  instances,  confined  to  the  use  and 
association  of  the  moneyed  classes.  Instead  of  such  a 
result,  a  high  tax  upon  luxuries  positively  caters  to  the 
desires  of  the  fashionable  world.  It  stamps  them  with  the 
prime  qualification  of  Fashion's  servants — costliness.  It 
responds  to  the  cardinal  behest  of  this  exclusive  law,  and 
raises  a  barrier  between  its  subjects  and  those  of  a  so-called 
lower  life.  And  since,  except  in  the  case  of  a  rate  of 
taxation  of  unprecedented  enormity,  the  consumption  of 
luxuries  is  not  curtailed  by  an  excise  or  other  burden,  the 
statement  finds  abundant  warrant  that  up  to  this  point  of 
very  excessive  taxation  the  greater  the  tax  upon  luxuries  the 
greater  the  revenue. 

The  difference  in  the  results  of  the  operation  of  the  same 
ratio  of  taxation  upon  necessaries,  comforts  and  luxuries, 
as  stated  in  the  outset  of  this  immediate  discussion,  seems 
to  be  plainly  and  fully  apparent.  Before  a  final  summing 
up  is  made,  however,  of  this  system  of  taxing  consumable 
commodities,  and  of  the  principle  of  indirect  taxation  in 
general,  there  are  certain  conditions  of  a  tariff  impost 
pertinent  to  this  inquiry  which  must  receive  a  passing  con- 
sideration. 

This  very  brief  comment  upon  the  incidental  taxation  of 
consumable  commodities  by  means  of  a  tariff  impost  must, 
of  necessity,  be  introduced  by  a  "statement  of  a  truth  made 
familiar  by  the  next  preceding  chapter — namely,  tariffs  are 
of  two  sorts,  industrial  and  revenue.  The  first,  aiming 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

alone  to  foster  home  industry,  lays  an  impost  only  upon 
such  articles  as  are  subjects  of  home  production,  and  to  an 
extent  already  defined,  and  is  styled  protection.  The  last 
lays  its  impost  without  any  such  rule  of  discrimination  upon 
any  imported  commodity  for  the  single  purpose  of  provid- 
ing means  for  the  support  of  Government,  and  is  rightly 
styled  a  revenue  tariff.  The  way  is  now  opened  for  a  state- 
ment of  the  prime  point  of  this  immediate  investigation — 
namely,  a  protective  tariff  is  not  an  instrument  of  taxation 
— a  revenue  tariff  is.  That  protection  is  not  taxation  was 
fully  shown  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  present  part  of  this 
treatise,  when  "Protection  and  Free  Trade"  were  sub- 
mitted to  a  detailed  examination.  The  argument  will  not 
be  reiterated  in  full.  Reference  may  be  had  to  it  if  occa- 
sion requires.  Suffice  it  in  this  connection  to  give  its  sub- 
stance— that  in  reference  to  all  articles  of  home  production 
the  cost  of  such  production,  by  force  of  the  law  of  compe- 
tition, governs  the  selling  price,  irrespective  of  the  amount 
of  a  tariff,  however  excessive,  upon  similar  commodities 
imported  from  foreign  countries. 

In  the  case  of  articles  other  than  those  of  home  produc- 
tion, however,  a  customs  duty  is  a  simple  instrument  of 
taxation.  And  the  reason  is  obvious.  Contrasting  such  a 
tariff  with  one  laid  for  protection  only,  the  fundamental 
conditions  are  reversed.  As  there  is  no  home  competition 
to  have  any  influence  upon  the  extent  of  price,  the  rates  of 
the  foreign  markets,  as  fixed  by  foreign  competition,  are 
supreme.  The  purchasing  country  wherein  such  commodi- 
ties are  not  produced  is  wholly  at  their  mercy,  and  a  tariff 
necessarily  adds  to  the  amount  of  the  foreign  price.  In 
the  absence  of  home  competition  it  is  a  mere  problem  in 
simple  addition.  So  far  as  this  country  is  concerned,  take, 
for  example,  the  article  of  coffee.  Its  production  in  the 
United  States,  relatively  speaking,  is  absolutely  impossible. 
Let  it  be  supposed  that  the  price  of  this  staple  in  a  West 


TAX  A  TION.  497 

India  port  is  fifty  cents  per  pound.  Impose  a  duty  upon  all 
importations  of  the  same  to  the  extent  of  ten  cents  a  pound, 
and  in  the  absence  of  home  competition  what  possible 
agency  is  there  to  place  the  price  below  sixty  cents  per 
pound  in  our  commercial  marts? 

.  This  incidental  discussion  must  not  be  assumed  to  de- 
claim against  revenue  tariffs  because  they  prove  themselves 
to  be  instruments  of  taxation.  It  does  not.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  great  majority  of  instances,  to  a  certain  extent, 
as  will  hereafter  be  seen,  it  endorses  them,  and  endorses 
them  simply  and  solely  because  they  are  means  of  lay  ing  taxes. 
The  direct  aim  of  the  present  comment,  however,  was  to 
show  the  only  additional  instance — with  the  exception  of  a 
stamp-tax,  which,  for  the  most  part,  is  but  another  species 
of  excise,  and  therefore  covered  by  the  past  discussion,  and 
too  well  understood  to  require  a  separate  elucidation — in 
which  consumable  commodities  are  taxed  outside  of  the 
forms  indicated  in  the  table  hereinbefore  given. 

In  the  light  of  these  simple,  self-evident  truths  (the 
digression  craves  pardon)  it  is  seemingly  impossible,  to 
account  for  the  favorite  expression  of  free  traders,  "Pro- 
tection is  taxation."  It  is  an  abuse  of  terms.  Protection, 
it  is  true,  is  secured  by  the  employment  of  tariffs.  Of  the 
last,  as  already  stated,  there  are  but  two  in  number,  pro- 
tective and  revenue.  The  last  is  taxation — the  former  not. 
The  distinction  is  sharp  and  well  defined,  natural  and  not 
artificial,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  slightest  possible  reflec- 
tion there  would  seem  to  be  no  ground  for  confusion. 

A  final  summing  up  of  this  topic  of  commodity  and  indi- 
rect taxation  will  now  be  made,  a  general  outline  of  a  feas- 
ible system  of  State  and  national  taxation  l>e  then  indicated, 
and  the  present  chapter  be  brought  to  a  conclusion. 

The  task  above  assigned  will  be  best  initiated  by  a 
statement  of  the  present  revenue  returns  of  Government. 
For  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1872,  the  aggregate 

42* 


THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

revenue  of  Government  from  imposts  and  taxes  was 
about  $350,000,000 — $225,000,000  of  the  former  and 
$125,000,000  of  the  latter.  Of  this  last  about  $60,000,000 
eventuated  from  direct  taxation.  With  these  statistics  arith- 
metical calculation  will  show — the  customs  duties  reckoned 
as  income  from  indirect  taxation,  of  course,  as  such  income 
all  springs  from  an  impost  on  commodities — that  the  reve- 
nue of  Government  derived  from  indirect  taxes  in  the  fiscal 
year  above  named  was  about  $290,000,000,  or  five-sixths 
of  the  entire  receipts.  The  above  are  all  round  numbers, 
but  the  position  in  reference  to  the  amount  of  indirect 
taxes  is  prejudiced  instead  of  favored  by  the  numerical 
statement. 

At  this  point  let  some  of  the  practical  workings  of  indi- 
rect taxation  be  recalled.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
under  this  system  of  taxation  are  found  the  following 
impossibilities — namely :  that  of  ascertaining  the  party 
upon  whom  the  burden  will  fall,  further  than  to  say  the 
consumer,  which  amounts  to  nothing  so  far  as  identifica- 
tion is  concerned;  that  of  ascertaining  the  extent  of  sacri- 
fice which  these  uncertain  individuals  are  able  to  make ; 
and  that  of  establishing  a  ratio  of  assessment  which  will 
yield  relatively  equal  returns  from  the  three  great  classes 
of  commodities — necessaries,  comforts  and  luxuries. 

Returning  now  to  the  record  of  reported  facts,  the  state- 
ment finds  abundant  warrant  from  the  statistics  of  our 
revenue  returns,  that  fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  revenue 
received  from  indirect  taxes  eventuated  from  the  burden 
laid  upon  ordinary  articles  of  subsistence,  or  those  which 
come  under  the  heads  of  necessaries  and  comforts,  which 
amount  to  $145,000,000.  As  already  stated  in  a  prior 
connection,  the  wealthy  or  comparatively  independent 
classes  in  this  country  do  not  constitute  above  one-tenth 
of  our  aggregate  population.  The  consequence  is,  that  as 
nine-tenths  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  used  in  the 


TAXA  TION.  499 

United  States  are  consumed  by  the  poorer  classes,  they 
have  borne  nine-tenths  of  the  burden  imposed  upon  these 
commodities,  which  amounts  ($145,000,000  representing 
the  gross  sum)  in  round  numbers  to  $130,000,000.  But 
two  other  items,  which  cannot  be  exactly  ascertained,  must 
be  placed  to  the  credit  of  our  laboring  population.  One  is 
the  portion  of  the  direct  taxation  which  they  have  borne  in 
the  levy  upon  incomes,  and  the  other  results  from  the  special 
manner  in  which  the  commodity-tax  has  been  laid.  It  has 
been  specific,  and  rightly  so,  for  ad  valorem  taxes  open  a 
door,  as  explained  in  a  prior  connection,  to  wholesale  fraud 
and  deception.  But  the  truth  of  this  general  principle  has 
not  made  the  poor  man's  burden  any  easier  to  bear.  For 
instance,  tea  has  been  subjected  to  an  impost  of,  say,  twenty 
cents  per  pound,  without  regard  to  value.  A  pound  worth 
fifty  cents,  which  a  laboring  man  consumes,  pays  the  same 
tribute  to  Government  as  a  pound  worth  two  dollars  that 
his  wealthy  neighbor  can  afford  to  purchase.  The  exact 
amount  of  additional  taxation  sustained  in  these  two  ways 
by  the  poorer  classes,  as  already  noted,  it  is  impossible  to 
record,  but  it  may  be  safely  placed  at  $20,000,000.  Add 
this  sum  to  $130,000,000,  as  before  deduced,  and  it  is  seen 
that  $150,000,000  represent  about  the  amount  of  the  national 
burden  of  the  fiscal  year  1871-72  which  was  borne  by  man- 
ual toil.  The  gross  sum  of  this  burden,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  $350,000,000,  leaving  $200,000,000  to  be  cred- 
ited to  the  account  of  capital;  and  the  proportion  is  grossly 
wrong  and  unjust.  It  is  by  no  means  an  equality  of  sacri- 
fice. 

The  argument  is  not  intended  to  deny  the  right  of  com- 
modity and  indirect  taxation.  Due  necessities  of  Govern- 
ment, such  as  were  precipitated  upon  the  United  .States  in 
1861,  furnish  abundant  reason  and  excuse  for  such  a  course 
— and  even  for  the  ordinary  purpose  of  a  peace  revenue 
they  are  defensible — but  they  have  been  laid,  in  the  ten 


500         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

years  last  past,  with  great  inconsistency  and  unwisdom,  so 
far  as  this  country  is  concerned.  The  alcavala  excise  of 
Spain,  which  levied  a  tax  upon  commodities  every  time 
they  passed  to  a  new  owner,  was  scarcely  more  prejudicial 
to  Spanish  commerce  than  our  commodity-tax  has  been  to 
the  interests  of  labor.  A  brief  suggestion  will  be  made  in 
respect  to  such  levies  in  a  future  connection,  but  the  line  of 
argument  as  already  defined  requires  an  intimation  at  this 
point  of  the  most  equitable  method  of  local  State  taxation. 

The  States,  by  virtue  of  our  organic  law,  are  relieved  of 
very  much  of  the  embarrassment  incident  to  the  General 
Government  as  connected  with  the  subject  of  taxation. 
Prohibited  as  they  are  from  laying  any  duties  upon  imports, 
they  have  no  jurisdiction  in  the  field  of  industrial  legisla- 
tion. The  scope  of  their  taxing  power  is  to  procure  means 
for  the  support  of  their  local  governments,  and  may  be 
made  comparatively  simple  in  its  operation  and  just  and  im- 
partial in  its  results.  It  will  be  remembered  that  this  discus- 
sion has  disputed  the  feasibility  of  all  direct  taxes,  except  a 
land-tax,  stamping  as  unadvisable  the  other  direct  taxes — 
namely,  those  upon  incomes  and  a  capitation  or  poll  tax. 
It  has  also  contested  the  propriety  of  a  tax  upon  rents. 
Referring  to  those  arguments,  the  proposition  is  now  asserted 
that  all  State  taxation  should  be  direct,  and,  by  force  of 
the  immediate  preceding  comment,  should  be  confined  to  a 
tax  upon  land  (using  the  term  in  its  legal  sense  as  already 
explained),  or,  in  other  words,  upon  real  estate. 

The  moneyed  requirements  of  the  State  governments  in 
times  of  peace  are  comparatively  trivial  (except  when  ad- 
ministered as  those  of  the  Southern  States  have  been  for 
the  last  five  years  by  Northern  men),  and  the  burden  of 
their  support,  as  explained  in  the  prior  discussion  of  a  land- 
tax,  is  more  equitably,  evenly  and  proportionately  distrib- 
uted when  it  is  imposed  entirely  upon  real  property.  The 
maintenance  of  this  land-tax  will  not  be  here  reviewed. 


TAXATION.  5<DI 

Allusion  to  it  may  be  had  as  necessity  suggests,  but  the 
fact  that  it  goes  directly  home  to  the  party  who  must  first, 
last  and  alone  respond  to  the  assessment ;  that  his  ability 
of  sacrifice  may  be  ascertained  to  a  positive  certainty ;  that 
the  subject  of  the  levy  receives  the  best  and  principal  pro- 
tection of  the  local  governments ;  and  that  the  aggregate 
burden  may  be  distributed  over  this  species  of  wealth  with 
a  relatively  equal  and  just  proportion, — all  this  combined 
makes  it  the  most  feasible  and  wholesome  method  of  taxa- 
tion for  our  local  State  governments.  In  time  of  war,  when 
heavier  contributions  are  obligatory,  the  General  Govern- 
ment will  exercise  its  constitutional  power,  and  by  means 
of  its  revenue  and  excise  taxes  upon  consumable  commodi- 
ties, etc.  etc.,  will  summon  the  laboring  and  other  classes 
to  yoke  their  forces  with  those  of  capital  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  national  safety  and  honor. 

The  objection  will  of  course  be  raised  that  such  a  system 
of  exclusive  land  taxation  would  discourage  its  ownership, 
and  consequently  its  improvement.  Not  at  all.  That  is  a 
matter  which  would  entirely  govern  itself.  In  the  first 
place,  land  is  regarded,  and  always  will  be,  as  the  safest 
investment  for  capital,  and  by  virtue  of  this  one  fact  alone 
it  would  not  suffer  under  this  alleged  prejudice.  But  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand,  coupled  with  speculative  fore- 
sight, would  interpose  its  influence  and  prevent  any  such 
downward  tendency  in  respect  to  land  ownership  and  its 
cultivation.  The  cheapness  which  would  be  incident  to 
this,  like  all  other  species  of  property,  under  the  alleged 
depression  resulting  from  making  it  the  only  subject  of 
State  taxation,  would  attract  capital  to  investment  therein. 
But  such  depression  would  not  occur.  Aside  from  its 
admitted  superiority  as  a  subject  of  investment  on  the 
mere  ground  of  financial  policy,  there  are  other  causes 
which  always  render  the  possession  of  landed  property 
desirable.  The  wealthy  man  will  always  own  the  place  of 


502         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

his  residence,  and  the  poor  man  will  always  aspire  to  the 
ability  of  calling  the  cot  which  holds  his  family  his  own. 
These  facts,  coupled  with  the  opportunity  presented  in  our 
rapidly-growing  country  for  realizing  large  moneyed  returns 
from  the  purchase  and  sale  of  real  estate,  would  effectually 
bar  the  alleged  decline  in  its  ownership  and  cultivation  in 
the  event  of  making  it  the  only  subject  of  State  taxation, 
when  at  the  present  time  it  responds  to  nearly  one-half  of 
the  demands  of  these  local  governments  for  support.  The 
difference  in  the  relative  conditions  is  too  trivial  to  allow 
the  additional  burden  the  force  which  is  claimed  by  the 
objection.  It  would  prove  ephemeral  and  not  real. 

As  to  the  method  in  which  such  a  land-tax  should  be 
laid,  a  single  word  should  be  added  to  the  foregoing  com- 
ment. Citing  the  arguments  of  proportionate  sacrifice 
and  proportionate  protection  given  in  detail  at  an  earlier 
stage  of  this  discussion,  and  relying  thereon  for  proof  of 
the  present  position,  it  is  only  necessary  to  repeat  the  con- 
clusions drawn  from  those  arguments — namely,  that  real 
property  should  be  assessed  at  its  full  market  value,  and 
that  the  rate  of  assessment  should  be  progressive — that  is, 
at  certain  well-defined  stages  in  the  extension  of  individual 
ownership  the  rate  of  taxation  should  be  augmented. 

A  suggestion  as  to  the  most  feasible  and  equitable  method 
of  taxation  for  the  General  Government  is  now  in  order. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that  reference  is  here  had  solely  to 
taxation,  without  respect  to  industrial  imposts.  The  sub- 
ject will  be  first  treated  in  its  general  bearings,  and  then 
as  applied  to  the  present  exigencies  of  the  country. 

This  discussion  disputes  the  feasibility  of  capitation  and 
income  taxes  for  the  General  as  well  as  for  the  State  Gov- 
ernments, and  upon  the  same  grounds.  In  respect  to  the 
sole  remaining  form  of  direct  taxation — namely,  a  land-tax — 
there  are  two  reasons  which  render  it  inexpedient  for  the 
Federal  authority,  except  in  extraordinary  exigencies,  to 


TAX  A  TWN.  503 

resort  to  this  method  of  obtaining  revenue.  That  it  has 
the  constitutional  warrant  so  to  lay  its  taxes  no  one  will  for 
a  moment  dispute.  Such  power  is  expressly  delegated  to  it 
by  the  Constitution.  But  as  a  land-tax  has  always  been  a 
favorite  (and  indeed  the  chief)  method  of  the  State  govern- 
ments for  securing  their  revenues,  a  tax  laid  in  a  similar 
manner  by  the  General  Government  would  be,  so  to  speak, 
a  cumulative  burden  upon  the  same  subject  of  taxation.  It 
would,  of  course,  be  no  interference  with  State  preroga- 
tive. In  the  case  of  both  State  and  Federal  taxation  upon 
the  same  parcel  of  landed  property,  the  latter,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  by  virtue  of  our  organic  law,  would  require  to 
be  first  canceled.  But  the  fact  of  the  inherent  power  of 
the  General  to  override  the  State  governments  in  this  direc- 
tion furnishes  all  the  more  reason  why  it  should  be  chary 
of  such  action  except  in  seasons  of  absolute  necessity. 
There  is,  moreover,  as  already  stated,  an  additional  reason 
why  the  national  authority  should  raise  its  revenues  by  some 
other  means.  The  General  Government  is  particularly 
and  emphatically  a  creation  of  the  people,  and  not  a  league 
of  the  States.  The  people  are  its  parent,  and  to  the  people, 
instead  of  the  States,  it  looks  for  maintenance  and  defence. 
It  looks,  moreover,  to  the  entire  people,  and  not  a  part ; 
and  there  is  a  greater  show  of  reason  why  the  expenses  of 
the  General  Government — the  government  of  the  people  at 
large,  their  ultimate  resort  for  protection  and  defence  in 
case  the  local  organizations  of  the  States  shall  be  subverted 
— should  be  canceled  by  a  tribute  from  the  entire  masses. 

In  the  great  majority  of  instances,  therefore,  this  dis- 
cussion argues  a  system  of  indirect  taxation  for  the  General 
Government.  It  argues,  moreover,  that  this  taxation  shall 
consist  in  a  tariff  upon  such  imported  articles  coming 
under  the  head  of  comforts  and  luxuries  as  are  not  pro- 
duced in  this  country.  It  argues,  again,  in  pursuance  of 
principles  hereinbefore  enumerated,  that  the  rate  of  such 


504          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

imposts  should  be  small  on  comforts  and  large  on  luxuries, 
as  by  this  rule  will  the  largest  amount  of  revenue  be  raised 
from  these  respective  commodities.  It  argues  still  further 
that  save  in  the  case  of  actual  war  or  the  payment  of  an 
enormous  public  debt  this  simple  revenue  impost  will 
abundantly  supply  the  wants  of  the  General  Government. 
It  argues  also  that  when  such  public  indebtedness  is  in  pro- 
cess of  cancellation,  the  only  means  requisite  to  supplement 
such  a  revenue  tariff  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  Gov- 
ernment to  meet  both  its  current  expenses  and  maturing 
obligations  is  an  excise-tax  upon  the  luxuries,  and  possibly 
a  very  few  of  the  comforts,  which  are  produced  within  our 
own  borders.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  tariff  above 
discussed  is  a  revenue  and  not  a  protective  impost.  It  is 
taxation,  but  not  protection. 

An  application  of  these  principles  will  now  be  made 
to  the  present  status  of  the  United  States.  As  a  legacy 
of  the  late  rebellion  we  have  a  debt  of  about  twenty- 
three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  still  unpaid.  To  meet 
the  current  expenses  of  Government,  the  demands  of  our 
pension  list  and  the  interest  upon  our  public  debt  we  re- 
quire an  annual  revenue  at  the  present  moment  of  about 
$250,000,000.  In  accordance  with  the  genius,  precedents 
and  traditions  of  our  institutions,  a  wise  public  policy 
requires  that  we  reduce  the  amount  of  our  indebtedness 
to  the  extent  of  $50,000,000  per  annum.  For  present 
exigencies,  therefore,  we  stand  in  need  of  a  yearly  revenue 
of  about  $300,000,000,  without  regard  to  the  sinking 
fund  required  by  law,  as  explained  in  the  chapter  of  this 
treatise  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  "The  Money  and 
Currency  of  the  United  States."  Every  dollar  of  this  sum 
can  be  realized  from  a  revenue  impost  upon  such  imported 
comforts  and  necessaries  as  are  not,  for  the  most  part,  pro- 
duced in  this  country,  supplemented  by  an  excise-tax  upon 
tobacco,  spirits  and  fermented  liquors  of  home  production. 


TAXATION.  505 

The  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  our  public  lands  have  hereto- 
fore been  applied  to  the  purpose  above  described,  but  the 
recent  educational  act  of  Congress  has  wisely  mortgaged 
the  future  income  of  Government  in  this  direction  to  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  the  general  education  of  the  people. 

Our  revenue  returns  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1872,  already  given  in  the  aggregate,  are  pretty  accurately 
stated  in  detail  in  the  following  exhibit : 

Customs  Receipts $225,000,000 

Internal  Taxes : 

Spirits $50,000,000 

Tobacco 36,000,000 

Fermented  Liquors 8,500,000 

Banks  and  Bankers 5,000,000 

Gas 3,200,000 

Stamps 16,000,000 

Penalties 500,000          $119,200,000 

Miscellaneous  Sources 31,000,000 

Total $375,200,000 

By  these  statistics,  with  a  provision  for  an  annual  reduc- 
tion of  our  public  debt  in  the  sum  of  $50,000,000,  it  is  seen 
that  our  national  revenue  for  the  fiscal  year  just  closed 
(1871-72)  was  $75,000,000  in  excess  of  our  requirements. 
The  tariff  and  tax  bill  adopted  at  the  closing  hours  of  the 
last  Congress  (June,  1872)  contemplated  the  necessity  of  a 
reduction  in  the  burdens  imposed  upon  the  people,  but  it 
did  not  go  to  the  extent,  nor  accomplish  its  purpose  by 
the  most  desirable  means,  which  the  circumstances  of  the 
country  will  permit  and  its  exigencies  demand.  Its  amend- 
ments of  the  former  law  are  predicated  upon  a  necessary 
reduction  of  $43,000,000  in  our  national  revenue — only  a 
little  more  than  one-half  of  the  extent  to  which  it  should 
be  curtailed — and  its  major  inherent  defects  are  as  follows. 
It  should  have  abolished  our  entire  system  of  internal  taxa- 
tion, with  the  exception  of  the  excise  upon  tobacco,  spirits 

43  W 


506         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

and  fermented  liquors ;  but  instead  of  this  it  leaves  a  portion 
of  the  stamp-tax  in  existence,  the  most  inexcusable  of  which 
is  the  burden  upon  matches,  which  yields  a  yearly  revenue 
of  nearly  $2,000,000,  and  other  miscellaneous  provisions, 
the  combined  returns  of  which  (excluding  the  tobacco,  spirit 
and  liquor  excise)  will  amount  to  fully  $10,000,000.  These 
burdens  should  have  been  all  removed.  The  framers  of 
the  law,  moreover — notwithstanding  the  teachings  of  the 
last  five  years  to  the  effect  that  lower  rates  of  taxation  upon 
commodities  other  than  luxuries,  as  already  explained,  will 
afford  a  larger  aggregate  revenue  than  high  ones — have 
made  no  allowance  for  the  increased  returns  which  the  de- 
creased excise  of  their  new  law  upon  tobacco,  spirits  and 
liquors  will  result  in,  and  consequently  have  failed  to  make 
sufficient  inroads  upon  our  tariff  system.  The  consequence 
is,  that  in  the  summer  of  1873  Congress  will  be  again 
astonished  that  by  some  supposed  and  unseen  species  of 
legerdemain  its  reduced  rates  of  taxation  have  raised  a 
revenue  far  in  excess  of  its  estimates.  It  is  safe  to  predict 
that  the  receipts  of  the  fiscal  year  1872-73,  instead  of  falling 
below  the  limit  of  $320,000,000,  as  our  law-makers  opine, 
will  nearly  reach  the  sum  of  $375,000,000,  the  extent  of 
our  present  budget. 

This  miscalculation  has  led  to  the  following  errors  of  the 
new  law  in  respect  to  our  tariff  policy.  Some  commodities 
which  are  the  subjects  of,  and  still  demand,  protection  to 
the  full  extent  of  the  old  law,  have  been  placed  under  a 
lighter  duty.  Of  this  class,  iron,  metallic  wares  and  textile 
fabrics  are  the  chief  representatives.  Other  articles,  again, 
which  require  no  protection  at  all,  and,  moreover,  are  not 
proper  subjects  for  a  revenue-tax  tariff,  are  still  subjected  to 
a  heavy  impost,  and  the  free  list,  upon  which  should  be 
found  every  commodity  not  produced  in  this  country  with 
the  exception  of  luxuries,  and  perhaps  a  very  few  comforts, 
has  not  been  sufficiently  extended,  ft  is  neither  practicable 


TAXATION.  507 

nor  necessary  to  enumerate  these  several  classes  of  com- 
modities. Of  the  articles  which  need  no  protection,  as 
explained  in  the  chapter  upon  tariffs,  but  the  production  of 
which  the  present  law  assumes  to  foster,  wool,  coal  and 
lumber  are  the  principal  illustrations ;  and  as  they  are  not 
luxuries,  but  the  most  ordinary  grade  of  comforts,  they  are 
not  proper  subjects  for  a  revenue-tax  tariff.  Of  the  com- 
modities which  should  alone  be  subjected  to  such  a  tax 
tariff,  wines,  spirits,  fermented  liquors,  expensive  dress 
goods,  etc.  etc.  are  the  leading  exponents. 

If  this  may  be  denominated  "revenue  reform,"  this  dis- 
cussion joins  hands  with  "revenue  reformers."  This  is 
revenue  reform,  but  the  offspring  of  the  so-called  revenue 
reformers  is  an  entirely  different  agency.  It  strikes  at  every 
customs  barrier  at  our  ports  of  entry  that  guards  our  infant 
industries.  '  It  wars  upon  protection,  and  from  such  a  policy 
this  discussion  must  be  unqualifiedly  divorced. 


PART  IV. 

REPRESENTA  TIVE    G  O  VERNMENT. 


PREPARATORY. 

THE  closing  discussion  of  this  work,  like  all  the  pre- 
ceding ones,  will  be  confined  within  the  limits  desig- 
nated by  the  general  title  of  the  treatise.  A  full  examina- 
tion of  the  principles  of  representative  government  could 
not,  of  course,  be  placed  within  a  smaller  compass  than  that 
of  an  entire  volume.  Such  an  investigation  is  not  here  as- 
sumed. It  is  only  a  view  of  that  portion  of  the  science  of 
representative  government  which  in  its  application  to 
American  institutions  gives  evidence  of  inefficiency,  cou- 
pled with  a  criticism  of  mooted,  and  suggestions  as  to 
needed,  changes,  that  is  here  intended.  In  other  words, 
the  subject  will  receive  an  exposition  simply  as  it  helps  to 
make  up  the  issues  of  American  politics — merely  as  it  forms 
a  topic  of  dispute  in  the  American  republic. 

In  leaving  the  economic  inquiries  which  in  Part  III.  en- 
gaged attention,  we  again  enter  upon  a  similar  field  of 
thought  as  that  which  in  Part  II.  marked  our  exit  from  the 
economic  discussions  of  Part  I.  The  alternations  are  pre- 
cisely similar  in  character,  and,  as  stated  in  the  Intro 
ductory,  the  order  of  the  respective  transitions  was  de- 
signed by  the  author  for  the  purpose  of  affording  an  agree- 
able change  to  the  reader,  without  doing  violence  to  logical 
43  •  509 


5IO         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

precision  or  jeopardizing  the  possible  benefits  which  may 
result  from  the  perusal  of  the  essays. 

There  are  many  minor  points  connected  with  this  general 
subject  which,  by  virtue  of  their  intensely  interesting 
nature,  invite  an  acquaintance,  but  want  of  space  forbids 
an  examination  of  the  general  question  further  than  was 
stated  in  the  outset ;  and  the  same  reason  will  compel  a  re- 
gretted brevity  in  respect  to  the  range  of  the  comment 
which  can  alone  be  suffered.  The  list  of  sub-subjects  which 
will  receive  an  exposition  are — The  Elements  of  Represen- 
tative Government ;  Suffrage  ;  Minority  Representation  ; 
and  the  Centralization  of  Power.  Of  these  in  their  order, 
and  separately  by  chapters. 


REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT.  511 


CHAPTER   I. 

ELEMENTS  OF  REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT. 

Governments  are  the  Offspring  of  Experience,  and  not  of  Invention — 
The  Component  Parts  of  Government — The  Stages  of  Civilization  in 
respect  to  Government — The  Subject  in  History — The  Elements 
of  Representative  Government  are  Founded  in  Education — They  are 
Threefold — All  Forms  of  Government  in  a  certain  sense  Rest  upon 
Consent — The  Processes  of  Education  which  Lead  to  Representa- 
tive Government — The  Attendant  Difficulties  of — The  Reason  of 
Failures  in  Attempting  to  Adopt  it — The  Question  viewed  Philo- 
sophically— The  Subject  belongs  to  the  Realm  of  Reason. 

THERE  is  nothing  more  clearly  demonstrated  by  the 
-history  of  Christendom  than  the  fact  that  govern- 
ments are  not  the  product  of  invention.  Synthetically 
speaking,  the  component  parts  of  government  may  be  said 
to  be — first,  a  general  policy ;  and  second,  rules  of  action. 
The  former  is  a  guide  by  which  the  latter  are  to  be  framed 
and  administered — an  umpire  to  decide  upon  the  rightful- 
ness  of  law  and  its  execution.  It  is,  in  short,  a  nation's  con- 
science. The  latter  are  ordinances  for  the  control  of  indi- 
vidual conduct,  whether  public  or  private,  personal  or 
official.  This  general  policy  and  these  rules  of  action 
draw  their  character  from  the  status  of  civilization.  Civ- 
ilization, for  the  purposes  of  government,  passes  through 
four  principal  reformatory  stages — democratic,*  monarchi- 

*  It  may  provoke  a  protest  to  see  democracies  designated  as  the  most 
undesirable  of  governments,  but  such  is  not  only  the  order  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  also,  to  the  author's  mind,  the  teaching  of  history.  Discus- 
sion of  the  point  cannot  here  l>e  tolerated.  The  digression  would  con- 
sume by  far  too  much  space. 


512        THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

cal,  aristocratic,  and  republican  or  representative.  In 
democracies  the  general  policy  and  rules  of  action  bear 
the  impress  of  the  unbridled  and  irreconcilable  will  of  the 
masses ;  in  monarchies  the  will  of  the  monarch  is  the  sole 
parent  of  both ;  in  aristocracies  they  are  shaped  by  the  few 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  many ;  and  in  republics  by  the  qtial- 
ified  will  of  the  entire  people.  The  confusion  of  the  first 
induces  the  second ;  the  severity  of  the  second  leads  to  the 
third ;  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  masses  installs  the 
fourth.  The  deplorable  condition  of  ancient  Athens,  the 
miseries  of  Rome  under  Caesar  or  France  under  Charle- 
magne, and  the  hardships  of  the  English  people  under 
William  of  Normandy  and  his  nobles,  illustrate  the  first 
three  respectively,  while  the  present  status  of  the  English 
subjects  partly,  and  that  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
more  perfectly,  stand  as  an  exponent  of  the  fourth.  The 
elements  or  conditions  of  the  form  of  government  incident 
to  the  last  stage  of  civilization — of  representative  govern- 
ment— is  the  subject  of  this  immediate  investigation. 

The  history  indicated  by  the  next  preceding  paragraph 
furnishes  abundant  proof  of  the  truthfulness  of  its  opening 
sentences,  which,  to  give  it  in  another  form,  amounts  to 
this — namely,  that  governments  are  the  results  of  experi- 
ence, and  not  of  mental  creation  unaided  by  the  suggestions 
of  the  past.  By  this,  of  course,  is  intended  such  systems 
of  government  as  will  stand  the  test  of  time  and  the  shock 
of  social  disorders.  France,  for  example,  has  given  to  the 
world  several  instances  of  governments  of  pure  invention, 
but  they  have  crumbled  to  atoms  upon  the  first  onslaught 
of  discontent.  "The  young  live  forward  in  hope — the  old 
live  backward  in  memory,"  said  Aristotle;  and  there  are 
no  possible  words  which  can  so  fittingly  and  beautifully 
describe  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  task  of  framing 
governmental  codes.  The  Grecian  philosopher  in  a  single 
apothegm  unwittingly  indicated  the  means  of  genuine 


REPRESENTATIVE    GOVERNMENT.  513 

governmental  progress.  As  John  Stuart  Mill  tersely  puts  it, 
"  Governments  are  not  made — they  grow." 

The  elements  or  conditions  of  representative  government 
are  all  founded  in  education,  and  generally  speaking  they 
may  be  said  to  be  threefold.  They  consist  in  the  ability  to 
compromise  individual  opinion  and  to  defend  and  execute 
the  agreements  of  such  compromise.  The  excellence  of  a 
people's  culture  measures  the  success  and  perfection  of 
representative  government  within  their  borders.  Man  in 
his  savage  state  is  but  little  better  than  a  beast.  It  is  simply 
because  he  is,  as  Aristotle  terms  him,  "a reasoning  animal," 
that  he  is  lifted  above  the  level  of  the  brute  creation.  In  the 
idleness  or  unemployment  of  reason,  moreover,  he  is  even 
more  stubborn  and  unyielding  than  his  brute  subject.  He 
will  and  he  will  not.  Therein  is  his  sole  gauge  of  duty.  In 
this  simple  fact  springs  the  primal  necessity  of  government. 
It  essays  to  define  the  duty  which  the  willfulness  of  man 
will  not  permit  him  to  recognize,  and  to  compel  its  execu- 
tion, which,  for  the  same  reason,  he  will  not  voluntarily 
undertake.  Now,  the  main  essence  of  government  for  brute, 
ignorant  man  is  power,  while  for  educated  man  it  is  con- 
sent; and  the  more  perfect  the  education  the  easier  and 
wiser  the  consent.  The  former  is  government  by  outside 
agency — the  latter  is  self-government ;  and  this  brings  us  to 
a  brief  amplification  of  the  threefold  elements  or  conditions 
of  representative  government  already  stated. 

All  forms  of  government  may,  in  one  sense,  be  said  to 
be  founded  upon  consent.  In  many  instances,  however,  it 
is  consent  in  a  passive  sense  only — blind  submission.  In 
representative  governments  this  is  not  the  case.  The  ele- 
ment of  consent  is  here  active  instead  of  passive.  It  ante- 
dates obedience.  It  creates  by  consent  that  which  in  the 
same  manner  it  accepts  as  its  ruler.  The  name  of  repre- 
sentative  government  fully  conveys  its  nature.  It  is  a  com- 
promise by  the  masses  of  their  absolute  freedom,  to  the 

W2 


514         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

extent  of  allowing  a  few,  chosen  by  all,  to  prescribe  rules 
of  conduct  for  the  many,  with  the  explicit  understanding 
that  the  deliberations  of  the  few  shall  be  binding  and 
entirely  conclusive.  The  ability  for  such  a  compromise  is 
not  incident  to  the  earlier  stages  of  civilization.  The  un- 
tutored mind  will  never  consent  to  such  a  delegation  of 
power.  It  shrinks  from  exchanging  absolute  for  relative 
freedom,  simply  because,  in  its  ignorance,  it  is  unable  to 
see  the  superiority  of  the  latter  condition.  How  it  can  be 
better  for  him  to  voluntarily  permit  another  agency  than 
his  own  will  to  regulate  his  relations  with  others  is  some- 
thing which  the  savage  man  cannot  possibly  appreciate. 
This  is  the  obstacle  which  must,  of  necessity,  be  removed 
before  the  first  condition  of  representative  government  can 
be  asserted.  The  magnitude  of  the  task  can  hardly  be 
expressed  in  words.  It  is  no  insult  to  Omnipotence  to  say 
that  the  perfection  of  this  compromising  ability  constitutes 
the  dividing  line  between  human  and  superhuman  effort. 
It  is  the  conclusive  proof  that  man  partakes  of  the  image  of 
his  Maker — that  he  is  "  but  a  little  lower  than  the  angels." 
It  is  the  office  of  reason. 

It  is  impossible  and  irrelevant  in  this  connection  to  trace 
the  processes  of  education  by  which  this  status  is  attained. 
It  would  involve  a  history  of  civilization,  and  the  present 
purpose  is  secured  by  the  statement  that  the  first  element  or 
condition  of  representative  government  is  such  an  educa- 
tion of  reason  as  will  enable  it  to  see  that  self-government 
is  possible,  that  man  can  govern  himself,  only  when  he  can 
maintain  a  willingness  to  consent  to  the  principle  that  the 
mass  shall  choose  a  few  by  whose  ordinances  all  shall  be 
bound.  The  period  at  which  a  community  has  attained  to 
this  position  can  only  be  judged  of  by  comparison  and 
decided  by  experimental  effort.  There  are  no  infallible 
latent  exponents  of  its  existence.  When  reached,  mankind 
is  able  to  comprehend  the  words  of  William  Penn,  that 


REPRESENTATIVE    GOVERNMENT.  515 

"  life  without  liberty  is  slavery,  but  liberty  without  order 
is  oppression." 

The  second  condition  of  representative  government,  as 
already  stated,  consists  in  the  ability  to  defend  the  agree- 
ments resulting  from  that  compromise  of  individual  opinion 
which  forms  its  primal  requisite,  and  the  discussion  of 
which  has  just  been  dismissed.  It  is  one  thing  to  consent 
to  an  agreement,  it  is  quite  another  to  defend  its  wisdom. 
Man  is  imperfect.  His  reason  is  changeable  and  defective. 
It  is  easier  to  argue  the  feasibility  of  the  future  than  to  battle 
with  the  difficulties  of  the  present.  The  imperfection  of 
man  taints  every  work  of  human  construction.  In  some 
way  the  results  of  all  his  efforts  will  fall  short  of  their  aim. 
When  these  defects  of  human  undertaking  exhibit  them- 
selves, it  is  a  signal  for  the  onslaught  of  the  entire  forces 
of  the  disaffected — and  such  forces  always  have  and  always 
will  exist ;  and  it  is  a  wholesome  element  of  society,  for  it 
keeps  the  majority  under  constant  bonds  of  honesty — 
against  the  wisdom  of  the  entire  scheme  which  gives  evi- 
dence of  only  partial  imperfection.  The  shock  of  all  social 
disorders  originates  from  just  such  conditions  as  are  above 
described,  and  at  this  juncture,  for  the  purposes  of  repre- 
sentative government,  its  second  requisite  is  summoned  to 
action. 

It  may  respond  to  the  call,  and  it  may  not,  for  it  may  not 
have  an  existence.  It  is  at  this  point  that  experiments  in 
'representative  government  first  give  evidence  of  failure. 
The  first  stage  is  always  easily  compassed.  Men  are  vastly 
more  willing  to  agree  than  to  stand  by  their  agreements 
when  they  prove  to  be  unexpectedly  burdensome.  It  is  a 
mere  question  of  education,  a  problem  of  mental  and  moral 
philosophy  combined.  It  demands  the  exercise  of  a  rarer 
culture,  a  more  mature  judgment  and  a  more  infallible 
wisdom  than  is  required  by  the  first  condition  of  repre- 
sentative government  as  already  defined.  It  is  one  step  in 


5l6         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS, 

advance  thereof.  Its  attainment  is  alone  secured  by  educa- 
tion, and  largely  by  the  education  of  experience.  And  not 
until  mankind  has  so  elevated  its  reason  as  to  see  that 
because  all  human  means  are  defective,  and  every  human 
effort,  to  some  extent,  abortive,  the  greater  wisdom  consists 
in  abiding  by  the  mandates  of  an  imperfect  law  which  they, 
by  their  primal  consent  as  to  the  form  of  government  under 
which  such  law  should  be  created,  have  aided  in  enacting, 
until  its  legal  repeal  can  be  secured  instead  of  resorting  to 
force  therefor, — it  is  not  until  then  that  community  can  be 
said  to  be  possessed  of  the  second  element  or  condition  of 
representative  government.  Such  legal  repeal  as  is  above 
referred  to  is  the  revolution  of  thought,  while  the  repeal  by 
force  is  the  revolution  of  war.  The  first  is  incident  to  real 
representative  government — the  last  to  the  rule  of  the  mon- 
arch and  the  usurper.  Experimental  effort  here,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  first  requisite  of  representative  government,  can 
only  prove  the  possession  of  its  second  element  or  condi- 
tion. It  is  undefinable  by  theory,  and  exhibits  itself  only 
in  the  presence  of  a  practical  test. 

The  third  and  last  general  element  of  representative  gov- 
ernment is  the  ability  to  execute  the  agreements  resulting 
from  the  compromise  of  individual  opinion.  The  thought 
extends  itself  over  a  wider  compass  than  is  indicated  by  the 
mere  words  of  the  foregoing  proposition.  The  execution 
required  is  one  of  a  double  character — namely,  present 
ifjork  and  future  provision.  Motor-power  for  the  imme- 
diate propulsion  of  the  ship  of  state  is  not  alone  needed. 
The  way  for  its  onward  passage  must  be  cleared  far  in 
advance.  The  mariner  whp  attempts  to  furrow  the  track- 
less ocean  must  ever  watch  for  a  channel  of  safety  for  his 
hidden  keel,  or  founder  upon  the  shoals  and  quicksands  of 
the  treacherous  deep.  The  guardians  of  representative 
government — and.  in  certain  senses,  of  all  governments — 
bear  the  responsibility  of  a  similar  burden.  This  super- 


REPRESENTATIVE   GOVERNMENT.  S17 

visory  foresight,  so  to  speak,  which  is  the  main  essence  of 
the  third  element  of  representative  government,  is  akin  to 
prophecy,  and  is  the  par  excellence  of  mental  prerogative. 
It  demands  the  highest  order  of  culture,  education  and 
enlightened  thought.  It  is,  in  short,  statesmanship,  and 
is  an  article  of  the  utmost  possible  rarity.  Saying  noth- 
ing of  men  engaged  at  the  present  time  in  public  life,  the 
United  States  have  not  produced  above  a  half  dozen  men 
who  have  shown  a  title  to  pre-eminence  in  this  respect 
— Alexander  Hamilton,  Thomas  Jefferson,  John  Quincy 
Adams,  Daniel  Webster,  Henry  Clay  and  William  H. 
Seward. 

This  brief  survey  of  the  elements  or  conditions  of  repre- 
sentative government  need  not  be  farther  extended.  As 
stated  in  the  outset,  they  are  threefold,  are  founded  in  edu- 
cation, and  each  successive  requisite  demands  a  higher 
order  of  cultured  thought.  Their  existence,  let  it  be  again 
repeated,  is  alone  demonstrated  by  experimental  effort,  and 
their  abode  is  the  realm  of  reason. 


CHAPTER    II. 

SUFFRAGE. 

The  Essence  of  Representative  Government — Purity  of  Suffrage  defined 
— The  Requisites  of  Suffrage — The  Unthinking  Mind  Erroneously 
looks  upon  Suffrage  as  an  Abstract  Right — It  Rests  upon  Duty — 
Universal  Suffrage,  literally  speaking,  is  Indefensible  and  Wrong — 
Suffrage  defined — Its  Office  and  Power — The  Question  of  Education 
— The  Proper  Limits  of  Suffrage — Civilization  has  not  yet  Solved  the 
Problem — Light  Sought  from  the  History  of  the  Elective  Franchise 
in  the  Old  and  New  Worlds — The  Question  in  a  Philosophical  Sense 
— It  Depends  upon  the  Peculiar  Conditions  of  every  Nation  in  Re- 
spect to  Race,  Climate,  Traits  of  Character,  Education,  etc.  etc. — 
The  Proper  Limits  of  Suffrage  in  the  United  States— The  Difficulties 
attendant  upon  Clanship  in  this  connection — Our  Peculiar  Status 
44 


5l8          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

considered — An  Intelligent  Suffrage  our  only  Safeguard — Suffrage 
should  be  a  National  Institution — A  Proper  Scheme  of  Compulsory 
Education  Suggested — The  Benefits  of  sue  i  a  System — The  Position 
of  the  United  States  in  this  Respect  a  Critical  One — The  Hope  that 
Intelligence  will  Reassert  its  Dignity — The  Opinion  of  Theorists 
upon  this  Point — WOMAN  SUFFRAGE — A  Question  entirely  Distinct 
from  Suffrage  in  General — Upon  this  Thought  is  Based  the  Whole 
Issue — The  Real  Scope  of  the  Argument — John  Stuart  Mill  Cited — 
Woman  Suffrage  Denies  the  Natural  Condition  of  Woman  as  Or- 
dained by  God — It  Defeats  the  Purposes  of  the  Family — The  Creator 
,has  not  Indulged  in  Creation  without  a  Purpose — Such  Purpose  is 
Stamped  upon  every  Species  of  His  Handiwork — Ad!am  Ferguson 
Cited — The  Distinguishing  Characteristics  of  the  Male  and  Female 
Creation — The  Delicacy  of  the  Point — Analogies  Drawn  from  the 
Brute  Creation — These  Characteristics  Designate  the  Peculiar  Scope 
of  Male  and  Female  Duty — These  Laws  applied  to  Men  and  Women 
— Woman's  Nature — Eminent  Writers  thereon — The  Requirements 
of  Suffragan  Power  are  such  that  its  Exercise  by  Woman  Essays  a 
Repeal  of  the  Laws  of  God — The  Assertion  Supported  by  a  View  of 
Republican  Politics — Pertinent  Inquiries — The  Question  of  the 
Family — Its  Purposes  are  the  Preservation  of  Morality  and  the  Per- 
petuation of  the  Human  Race — The  Marital  Relation — Society — 
Maternity — The  Majority  of  Women  Shrink  from  the  Exercise  of 
the  Elective  Franchise — Sexual  Passion — Woman  and  the  Ballot  an 
Illegal  Bridal. 

OUFFRAGE  is  the  main  essence  of  representative  gov- 
wj  ernment.  It  is  not  only  its  motor-power,  but  its  ulti- 
mate safeguard.  The  endowment  of  suffrage,  the  privilege 
of  exercising  the  elective  franchise,  the  right  to  vote,  sets 
the  wheels  of  representative  government  in  motion,  and  the 
purity  of  suffrage  saves  it  harmless  from  outer  attacks  and 
internal  dissensions.  The  term  "purity  of  suffrage"  in 
this  connection  has  a  very  wide  meaning.  It  is  not  simply 
an  intendment  of  honesty,  of  the  absence  of  fraud  in  the 
mere  act  of  voting.  This,  it  is  true,  is  a  feature  of  its 
purity,  but  the  general  principle  covers  a  far  wider — and 
perhaps  it  may  be  safely  said,  a  far  more  important — field 
of  thought.  The  idea,  possibly,  may  be  best  appreciated 


SUFFRAGE.  519 

by  abstract  analogy.  Purity  itself  has  reference  not  to  acts 
alone,  but  to  the  character  of  the  agency  which  institutes 
the  action.  The  bare  act  may  be  seemingly  unobjection- 
able, but  its  author  may  be  an  absolute  libel  upon  virtue. 
The  mere  exercise  of  the  power  may  appear  entirely  defen- 
sible, but  the  motive  which  prompts  it  may  be  unqualifiedly 
wrong.  The  deduction  is,  that  purity  contemplates  not 
only  the  probity  of  the  act,  but  also  certain  elements  in  the 
actor  which  are  susceptible  of  a  perfect  and  combined  defi- 
nition in  the  use  of  the  wordjitness.  This  idea  of  abstract 
purity  attaches  itself  to  the  principle  of  a  pure  suffrage,  and 
the  latter  stands  as  an  exponent  not  only  of  an  honest  voter, 
but  also  of  one  who  has  the  necessary  elements  of  fitness. 

This  preliminary  comment  opens  the  door  to  the  main 
investigation,  which  will  be  conducted  under  the  following 
sub-subjects — namely : 

I.  The  Requisites  of  Suffrage ; 
II.  The  Proper  Limits  of  Suffrage ; 

III.  Woman  Suffrage. 

Of  these  very  briefly,  and  in  the  order  above  named. 

I.   THE  REQUISITES  OF  SUFFRAGE. 

The  unthinking  mind  has  been  accustomed  to  look  upon 
suffrage  as  an  inherent,  natural  right,  unqualified  by  any- 
thing except  the  simple  element  of  age.  It  has  regarded  it, 
so  to  speak,  as  an  indefeasible  estate  in  future,  for  the  vest- 
ing of  which,  unqualifiedly  and  for  ever,  there  was  nothing 
necessary  but  a  certain  arbitrary  limit  of  time.  The  tolera- 
tion— yes,  the  encouragement? — of  this  idea  has  generated 
a  cancer  which  has  destroyed  earlier  republics  than  ours, 
and  which  is  gnawing  its  way  to  the  vitals  of  the  body 
politic  of  the  United  States.  And  although  it  may  not — 
probably  will  not — compass  the  death  of  the  republic,  its 
presence  will  always  greatly  impede  its  progress,  and  asso- 


520         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

ciate  the  representative  government  of  our  country  with 
inefficiency  and  corruption. 

This  discussion  most  emphatically  denies  the  soundness 
and  tenability  of  universal  suffrage — a  suffrage  (not  includ- 
ing woman  suffrage)  which,  with  the  two  exceptions  of  age 
and  ordinary  character,  has  no  regard  for  the  qualification 
which  naturally,  reasonably  and  logically  is  an  absolute 
prerequisite  of  its  proper  possession.  Suffrage,  in  the 
abstract,  is  not  a  right,  but  a  mere  privilege.  It  is  based 
upon  duty,  and  the  discharge  of  such  duty  alone  transforms 
the  privilege  into  a  right.  The  nature  of  this  duty  and  its 
discharge,  and  the  requisites  of  suffrage,  are  synonymous 
questions.  A  discussion  of  one  is  a  discussion  of  the  other, 
and  the  same  will  now  receive  a  more  direct  attention. 

The  gist  of  the  inquiry  will  be  best  initiated  by  an 
abstract  definition  of  suffrage.  We  cannot  determine  its 
requirements  until  we  ascertain  its  elementary  nature. 
Suffrage  is  the  privilege  of  an  expression  of  opinion  by 
ballot  upon  a  matter  of  public  dispute,  with  the  sequential 
results  that  each  ballot  has  an  exact  numerical  power  for 
the  decision  of  the  mooted  point,  and  that  the  majority  of 
the  gross  number  of  ballots  cast  settles  the  question  at 
issue.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  without  any  use  of  the  meta- 
phor, that  suffrage  is  the  concretion  of  individual  opinion 
for  the  creation  and  execution  of  public  law.  This  con- 
cretion of  opinion  asserts  itself  in  a  twofold  manner — 
mediately  and  ultimately.  Mediately,  in  the  choice  of 
public  officials ;  ultimately,  in  the  sanction  of  proposed 
public  measures,  such  as  taxation  for  giving  public  aid  to 
private  enterprises,  the  ratification  of  proposed  constitutional 
changes,  etc.  etc.  In  all  cases,  however,  the  final  end  of 
the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  is  the  creation  or 
execution  of  law,  and  incidentally  of  the  administration  of 
justice  in  legal  tribunals.  The  ballot  chooses  the  legis- 
lator, and  the  legislator  frames  the  law ;  the  ballot  elects 


SUFFRAGE.  $21 

the  executive,  and  he  executes  the  law;  and  the  ballot, 
either  through  the  appointment  of  the  executive  which  it 
elects  or  its  own  direct  choice,  chooses  the  judicial  officers 
who  are  empowered  to  administer  justice. 

These  offices  of  suffrage  are  suggestive  of  its  true  con- 
ditions. A  moment's  reflection  is  sufficient  to  show  not 
only  that  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  involves  the 
employment  of  a  delicate,  intelligent  and  comprehensive 
discrimination,  but  also  that  such  exercise  of  the  voting 
power  shapes  the  destiny  of  every  country  which  adopts 
the  policy  of  representative  government.  It  is,  indeed,  the 
most  important — yes,  the  most  sacred — trust  which  can  be 
reposed  in  the  keeping  of  a  republican  people.  It  is 
something  more  than  mere  citizenship.  It  is  immeasura- 
bly greater  and  higher.  The  one  under  our  form  of 
government  is  a  naturally  inherent  right,  and  attaches 
nolens  volens  to  all  humanity  concurrently  with  its  birth — 
the  right  of  protection  to  life,  liberty  and  property.  The 
other,  as  already  stated,  is  a  privilege  transformed  by  the 
performance  of  duty  into  a  right — the  right  to  establish  and 
execute  law. 

Now,  the  primal  requisite  for  the  fulfillment  of  this  sacred 
trust  is  education,  and  yet,  strange  to  say,  the  American 
republic,  contrary  to  all  precedents  of  either  public  or  pri- 
vate success  in  analogous  circumstances,  ignores  this  funda- 
mental condition  entirely.  There  is  not  an  instance  of 
private  policy,  from  walking  the  tow-path  of  a  canal  to  the 
superintendence  of  the  delicate  machinery  of  finance  or 
the  practice  of  the  liberal  professions,  in  which  a  certain 
degree  of  acquired  fitness  is  not  demanded  of  the  one  who 
essays  the  performance  of  these  simple  and  intricate  trusts. 
The  canal-man  must  know  how  to  drive  a  mule,  and  the 
banker  or  professional  man  must  have  a  knowledge  of  the 
nature,  uses  and  offices  of  money  or  the  theory  and  practice 
of  his  profession.  This  requirement  of  fitness  in  private 
44  • 


522         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

undertakings  is  a  simple  compliance  with  the  mandates  of 
natural  law.  In  every  avenue  of  success  knowledge  must  pre- 
cede action.  The  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  consti- 
tutes no  exception  to  the  general  principle.  Is  it  wrong  to 
demand  that  the  agent  who  shall  prescribe  and  execute  the 
rules  of  action  for  a  people,  who  shall  shape  its  internal 
and  foreign  polity,  shall  be  possessed  of  a  reasonable 
knowledge  of  what  the  necessities  of  such  polities  demand  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  is  it  not  lamentably  and  inexcusably 
culpable  that,  as  in  the  United  States,  the  simple  semblance 
of  honest  manhood,  however  ignorant,  is  the  only  fitness 
required  for  a  full  exercise  of  the  suffragan  power? 

The  immediate  proposition  that  education  is  the  primal 
condition  and  requisite  of  suffrage  will  not  be  further  am- 
plified. It  seems  wholly  unnecessary.  The  only  corrobo- 
rative support  it  requires  is  a  simple  appeal  to  reason  and 
ordinary  judgment.  Both  the  objections  to  the  propo- 
sition and  its  proper  limits — the  degree  of  education  ne- 
cessary— find  an  appropriate  place  under  the  next  sub- 
subject. 

II.  THE  PROPER  LIMITS  OF  SUFFRAGE. 
What  are  the  proper  limits  of  suffrage  ?  The  question  is 
one  which  the  future  of  civilization  must  solve.  The  past, 
although  it  sheds  light  upon  the  onward  pathway,  has  by 
no  means  attained  the  goal.  If  we  trace  the  history  of  the 
elective  franchise  through  its  principal  stages,  the  Greek, 
Roman,  English  and  American,  we  find  it  crippled  by  inef- 
ficiency, tainted  with  corruption  and  a  companion  of  injus- 
tice. One  of  the  chief  difficulties  which  surround  the 
problem  is  found  in  the  fact  that  suffrage  is  not  responsive 
to  the  principles  of  absolute  science.  Rules  for  its  regula- 
tion cannot  be  established  which  would  be  equally  perti- 
nent to  all  countries  and  peoples.  Its  abstract  condition  is 
always  the  same — education,  knowledge,  enlightenment — 


SUFFRAGE.  $2$ 

but  the  elements  with  which  it  is  brought  in  contact  are 
totally  dissimilar  and  constantly  varying  in  their  incongruity  of 
character.  The  geographical  position  and  territorial  extent 
of  nations,  the  habits  and  customs  of  peoples,  the  status  of 
a  nation  in  respect  to  age,  the  pursuits  of  a  country's  inhab- 
itants, the  temperament  of  races,  the  effects  of  climate, — 
all  these  present  collateral  forces  so  far  from  universality  in 
respect  to  character  which  the  law  of  suffrage  is  obliged  to 
appreciate  and  reconcile,  that  absolute  rules  for  its  univer- 
sal guidance  are  not  only  unadvisable,  but  wholly  imprac- 
ticable. The  kingdom  of  Italy,  with  its  comparatively 
restricted  area,  could  tolerate  a  suffrage  more  universal 
than  Russia  with  its  gigantic  proportions  :  the  vivacious 
and  volatile  French  demand  a  suffrage  far  more  restricted 
than  the  cool  and  stolid  Saxon ;  the  old  Swiss  cantons  can 
submit  to  a  suffrage  far  more  general  than  the  young  repub- 
lic which  might  be  reared  upon  the  territory  of  unhappy 
Poland;  the  Neapolitan  peasantry  would  require  a  suffrage 
much  more  curtailed  than  the  merchantmen  of  Holland ; 
while  the  mutinous  temperament  of  the  Celt,  the  dreamy 
carelessness  of  a  Southern  Italian  and  the  excitable  denizen 
of  the  Tropics  would  stand  in  need  of  a  suffrage  more  lim- 
ited than  the  stolid  Dutch,  the  thinking  American  and  the 
resident  of  the  North  Temperate  Zone. 

The  future  exploits  of  civilization  may  so  compass  these 
difficulties  that  a  cosmopolitan  system  of  suffrage  will  be 
one  of  the  products  of  its  labors,  but  we  gravely  doubt 
it.  Like  the  topic  of  meteorological  inquiry  in  the  past,  it 
has  never  been  reduced  to  the  limits  of  pure  science  for 
reasons  above  stated,  but,  seemingly  unlike  it  in  the  future, 
there  appears  to  be  no  hope  or  possibility  of  its  assuming  a 
scientific  status,  while  meteorology  bids  fair  to  arrive  at  that 
position.  The  result  is,  that  for  the  present,  and  probably 
for  all  time,  every  nation  which  adopts  a  representative 
form  of  government  must  establish  a  suffrage  adapted  to  its 


524         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

own  peculiar  conditions  and  requirements.  It  is  something 
which  must  ever  be  subject  to  the  force  of  local  natural 
law.  The  advocate  of  universal  suffrage  here  interposes 
the  plea  that  his  system  cuts  the  Gordian  knot  and  dissolves 
the  difficulties  above  enumerated.  By  no  means.  It  disre- 
gards the  difficulties ;  it  evades  them,  shuns  them,  but  does 
not  solve  them.  This  discussion  grants  the  universal  suf- 
fragist this  much — namely,  that  when  the  difficulties  here- 
inbefore enumerated  shall  have  been  removed,  his  system 
will  be  the  only  proper  and  correct  one — that  the  nearer 
civilization  approximates  to  their  removal,  the  farther 
may  suffrage  be  extended.  But  we  augur,  however,  that 
that  era  is  incident  to  such  a  perfection  of  humanity  as 
will  never  be  attained  this  side  of  the  great  Unknown. 
Its  advent  would  note  the  dawn  of  the  millennium. 

The  general  proposition,  then,  is  that  the  limits  of  suf- 
frage at  present,  and  probably  for  all  time,  must  be  des- 
ignated by  every  nation  which  adopts  a  representative 
form  of  government.  The  remaining  inquiry  in  this  con- 
nection alone  pertinent  to  the  present  treatise  is,  What  are 
the  proper  limits  of  suffrage  for  the  United  States  ? 

The  organization  of  society  and  government  is  based 
upon  certain  fundamental  conditions,  the  most  paramount 
of  which  is  individual  sacrifice.  Without  such  sacrifice 
both  social  and  governmental  regulations,  in  practice  at 
least,  if  not  in  theory,  are  absolutely  impossible.  The 
principle  asserts  itself  in  the  earliest  stages  of  social  organ- 
ism. It  even  antedates  the  formation  of  the  family.  The 
simple  clanship  of  any  two  individuals,  in  mere  relations 
of  friendship  even,  requires  a  sacrifice  of  what  may  be  best 
termed  individuality.  Tastes,  habits,  temperaments  and 
idiosyncrasies  are  never  alike  in  any  two  individuals,  and 
their  continued  association  is  only  the  result  of  compromise. 
This  element  of  individual  sacrifice,  which  begins  with 
dual  clanship,  is  augmented  with  every  increase  of  associ- 


SUFFRAGE.  525 

ated  numbers.  It  is  greater  in  the  family  than  in  the  clan ; 
greater  in  restricted  society  than  in  the  family ;  and  greater 
in  the  entire  assemblage  of  human  brotherhood  living  un- 
der one  government  than  in  the  narrower  social  relations 
of  which  the  vast  whole  is  composed. 

Carrying  this  general  principle  to  its  natural  and  logical 
sequence,  if  we  apply  it  to  suffrage  the  deduction  plainly 
is,  that  there  must  be  personal  sacrifice  here  as  in  all  other 
social  or  governmental  relations.  In  other  words,  it  can- 
not be  universal.  And  here,  moreover,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
framework  of  society  and  government,  in  the  conduct  of 
either  private  or  public  affairs,  the  greatest  advancement 
of  the  general  good,  the  greatest  promotion  of  the  main 
object,  must  measure  the  extent  of  the  sacrifice.  And  still 
further,  as  already  intimated  in  a  prior  connection,  the 
avenue  of  escape  from  this  individual  sacrifice  in  respect  to 
suffrage  is  found  in  fitness. 

By  these  aids  let  the  main  question  now  be  grasped : 
What  are  the  proper  limits  of  suffrage  in  the  United  States? 
Let  us  scan  for  a  moment  our  peculiar  position.  In  point 
of  territory  we  are  among  the  foremost  nations  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  living  under  a  representative  form  of 
government.  Considered,  as  we  are,  the  freest  people  in 
Christendom,  our  borders  are  a  magnet  for  the  attraction 
of  immigrants  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  many  of 
whom  are  deplorably  ignorant,  and  many  of  whom  represent 
the  lower  orders  of  civilization.  Our  habits  are  intensely 
active  and  absorbing,  our  country  is  in  its  infancy,  and  our 
extremely  mixed  population,  coupled  with  our  wide  latitu- 
dinal range,  renders  our  race-temperament  of  the  most 
diversified  and  unmergeable  character.  All  these  present 
insurmountable  difficulties  to  the  adoption  of  universal 
suffrage.  The  status  of  our  immigrant  population  alone 
refutes  it ;  our  vast  expanse  of  territory,  in  its  growing 
unwieldiness,  alone  denies  it ;  our  youth  leaves  us  unpre- 


526         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

pared  for  it,  and  our  race-temperament  stamps  it  as  an 
unqualified  absurdity. 

Where,  then,  shall  the  line  be  drawn  ?  There  is  but  one 
answer  to  the  interrogatory :  It  must  be  drawn  upon  a  basis 
of  education.  We  cannot  reconcile  the  irreconcilable ; 
we  cannot  merge  the  unmergeable;  we  cannot  universalize 
the  incongruous;  therefore  justice  must  be  done  to  all,  and 
fitness  govern  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  agencies.  By  a 
basis  of  education,  moreover,  we  do  not  argue  an  apology 
therefor.  We  would  not  lay  down  an  educational  rule  which 
would  be  a  mere  libel  upon  intelligence.  The  mere  ability 
to  read  and  write  for  purposes  of  suffrage  is,  in  many 
instances,  precisely  such  a  libel. 

In  defining  the  exact  limits  of  suffrage  upon  an  educational 
basis  we  are  met  at  the  outset  with  an  obstacle  of  constitu- 
tional import.  Our  organic  law  leaves  the  regulation  of 
suffrage,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  hands  of  the  States. 
That  the  several  States  would  ever  agree  upon  a  uniform 
system  is  not,  for  a  moment,  to  be  anticipated.  It  were 
seemingly  far  better  that  an  institution  which  is  the  very 
foundation  of  our  national  organism,  the  main  essence  of 
representative  government,  as  suffrage  is,  should  be  under 
the  exclusive  regulation  of  national  authority.  Such,  indeed, 
was  the  firm  opinion  of  many  of  the  best  minds  of  the 
Constitutional  Convention.  The  matter  was  finally  placed 
under  the  control  of  State  authority,  as  one  of  the  means 
for  saving  the  overthrow  of  the  project  of  constitutional 
reform.  It  was  one  of  the  compromises  between  Federalism 
and  State  rights  by  which  our  present  Constitution  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  The  immense 
expansion  of  our  territory  and  the  almost  measureless 
diversification  of  our  population  since  the  adoption  of  our 
national  charter,  however,  are  not  only  sufficient  but  im- 
perative reasons  why  the  opposite  course  should  be  now 
adopted. 


SUFFRAGE.  S27 

With  a  change  in  our  organic  law  placing  the  regulation 
of  suffrage  under  the  exclusive  control  of  national  authority, 
we  may  well  look  to  the  German  empire  for  instruction  as 
to  the  next  step  for  properly  protecting  our  elective  franchise. 
A  national  system  of  compulsory  education  should  follow 
such  a  change,  making  the  minimum  limit  thereof  a  degree 
of  intelligence  at  least  equal  to  that  which  will  suffice  for 
admission  to  the  best  grade  of  our  institutions  known  as 
academies.  All  of  our  educational  schools,  moreover, 
below  that  grade  should  be  required  to  issue  certificates  of 
graduation,  and  not  until  applicants  for  the  exercise  of  the 
elective  franchise  could  furnish  these  conclusive  evidences 
of  their  fitness  to  enter  the  higher  grade  of  institutions 
above  named  should  they  be  endowed  with  the  trust. 

The  point  will  be  at  once  raised  in  this  connection,  that 
the  scheme  would  work  hardships  in  the  first  stages  of  its 
operation.  Doubtless.  But  better  individual  hardship  for 
a  time  than  jeopardy  of  national  existence.  Self-preserva- 
tion is  the  paramount  law  of  public  as  well  as  private  policy, 
and  justice  properly  precedes  generosity.  Make  the  appli- 
cation of  the  rule  inexorable  to  all  classes,  and  no  plea  of 
personal  hardship  would  be  possessed  of  sufficient  dignity 
to  prejudice  the  scheme. 

The  additional  point  will  be  made  that  such  a  scheme  of 
suffrage  tends  to  the  unwarranted  centralization  of  power 
in  the  national  Government.  Of  this  in  the  concluding 
chapter  of  the  treatise. 

Limited  space  forbids  an  examination  of  the  benefits 
which  would  result  from  such  an  institution  of  suffrage. 
One,  however,  deserves  a  passing  mention.  It  is  this : 
Intelligence,  comparatively  speaking,  never  sells  its  vote. 
It  stands  upon  its  manhood,  and  votes  upon  its  convictions. 
Ignorance,  on  the  other  hand,  pursues  exactly  the  opposite 
course.  Its  ballot,  like  its  labor,  is  for  sale  to  the  highest 
bidder ;  and  herein  is  found  the  most  potent  agency  of 


528         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

political  corruption.  It  could  poorly  maintain  its  ground 
with  educated  voters,  and  would  ultimately  sink  into  irre- 
trievable ruin. 

Within  these  designated  limits  of  a  proper  suffragan 
policy  no  mention  has  been  made  of  women.  That  branch 
of  the  discussion  stands  upon  grounds  entirely  distinct  and 
peculiarly  its  own,  and  will  shortly  receive  attention. 

At  a  time  when  almost  every  restraint  has  been  removed 
from  the  right  to  exercise  the  elective  franchise — when, 
with  the  exception  of  women,  our  constitutional  seal  has 
been  set  upon  a  system  of  suffrage  wellnigh  universal — it 
may  seem  argument  to  no  purpose  to  advocate  a  rigid 
institution  of  intelligent  suffrage.  Possibly.  Reforms, 
we  are  told,  never  move  backward.  Undoubtedly  not. 
Change,  however,  is  not  always  reform.  The  test  of  the 
latter  is  time.  Future  years  may  present  such  exigen- 
cies as  will  fully  commend  the  wisdom  of  such  an  institu- 
tion to  the  judgment  of  the  American  people — nay  more, 
may  imperatively  demand  its  adoption.  Our  universality 
of  suffrage  has  as  yet  by  no  means  proved  the  rightfulness 
of  its  claims.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  constantly 
working  its  forfeiture.  It  has  wedded  corruption  to  our 
politics  in  general ;  sold  the  State  of  New  York,  through 
its  venality  for  years,  to  a  clan  of  adventurers ;  and  by  its 
ignorance  plunged  the  Southern  States  since  the  close  of 
the  rebellion  into  a  state  of  public  embarrassment,  dis- 
honesty and  official  theft,  by  the  side  of  which  even  the 
evils  and  woes  of  civil  war  pale  into  insignificance  and 
contempt. 

We  stand  by  no  means  upon  the  solid  rock  of  represen- 
tative government.  Our  public  polity  is  far  from  a  state  of 
perfect  security  against  the  onslaughts  of  discontent.  Its 
corner-stone  is  ignorance.  Its  principle  of  suffrage  is 
purely  the  result  of  a  false  sympathetic  sentiment.  It 
sprung  from  a  desire  to  do  justice  to  an  oppressed  and 


SUFFRAGE.  $29 

woefully-wronged  race,  but  it  overstepped  the  bounds  of 
reason.  In  essaying  justice  it  has  worked  injustice ;  in 
proclaiming  virtue  it  has  sown  corruption.  When  success- 
ive years  shall  have  brought  their  annual  gatherings  of  its 
folly  and  laid  them  at  our  feet,  when  the  moment  of  an 
earnest  yet  unwholesome  public  sympathy  shall  have  given 
place  to  one  of  reflection  and  reason,  when  experience  shall 
stand  in  the  room  of  blind  prediction,  then  it  may  not  be 
too  much  to  hope  that  intelligence  will  reassert  its  dignity ; 
that  our  elective  franchise  will  be  divorced  from  ignorance ; 
that  our  institution  of  suffrage  will  be  placed  upon  its  only 
sure  and  true  basis — Education. 

One  more  word  of  collateral  comment  before  the  next  sub- 
subject  shall  engage  attention.  Theorists  urge  that  the  pos- 
session of  the  right  to  vote  is  an  all-sufficient  guarantee  that 
intelligence  will  be  diligently  sought  by  the  voter — that 
suffrage  induces  education.  Among  the  supporters  of  this 
proposition  is  found  no  less  an  authority  than  John  Stuart 
Mill.  We  answer  him  and  his  fellow-thinkers  upon  this 
point,  with  all  due  respect,  by  a  simple  recourse  to  one  of 
the  most  common  instincts  of  a  common  humanity.  Man- 
kind, so  far  as  labor  is  concerned,  seldom  indulge  in  acts 
of  supererogation.  That  which  they  can  constantly  obtain 
either  with  labor  or  without,  they  always  take  by  the  latter 
method.  That  which  they  can  honestly  hold  without  effort, 
they  will  not  put  forth  effort  to  save.  Suffrage  forms  no 
exception  to  the  general  principle.  There  are  of  course 
exceptions,  where  a  taste  for  learning  would  induce  intelli- 
gence in  any  event,  but  these  exceptions  are  rare  and  un- 
common when  viewed  in  relative  comparison  with  the 
masses. 

The  other  grounds  upon  which  Mr.  Mill  argues  universal 
suffrage  are  more  appreciable.  Like  all  authors,  Mr.  Mill 
writes,  for  the  most  part,  from  a  home  stand-point,  and  as 
to  the  main  question  the  positions  of  England  and  the 

45  X 


530          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

United  States  are  almost  totally  dissimilar.  The  people  of 
England,  comparatively  speaking,  are  all  Englishmen,  and 
her  territorial  area  is  very  restricted.  The  people  of  the 
American  republic,  on  the  other  hand,  are  made  up  of 
representatives  of  every  nationality,  and  its  territorial  ex- 
panse is  colossal.  By  the  force  of  these  reasons  England 
might  tolerate  universal  suffrage,  while  the  United  States 
could  not. 

III.  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

The  question  of  suffrage  for  women  is  one  wholly  dis- 
tinct and  separate  from  the  subject  of  suffrage  in  general. 
It  rests  upon  a  peculiar  footing  of  its  own.  These  state- 
ments, perhaps,  demand  a  word  of  qualification.  The 
advocate  of  woman  suffrage  will  doubtless  give  them  a 
prompt  and  unqualified  denial.  The  opposite  position  is 
indeed  the  foundation  of  his  entire  argument.  Upon  his 
claim  that  no  discrimination  should  be  made  between  the 
status  of  men  and  women  in  respect  to  suffrage  rests  his 
entire  plea  for  giving  the  latter  the  privilege  of  the  elective 
franchise.  It  is  the  sole  key  to  his  position.  This  dis- 
cussion, however,  denies  the  soundness  of  the  doctrine  of 
woman  suffrage,  and,  like  its  opponent,  bases  its  argument 
upon  one  single,  generic  proposition — a  proposition  which 
is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  fundamental  claim  of  the  advo- 
cates of  woman  suffrage — namely,  that  a  discrimination  is 
imperatively  demanded,  by  every  principle  of  reason  and 
public  and  private  policy,  between  the  status  of  men  and 
women  in  this  particular.  Hence  the  opening  sentences  of 
the  present  paragraph. 

The  true  compass  of  the  argument,  either  for  or  against, 
is  embraced  by  these  simple  and  easily-appreciable  limits. 
In  view  of  this  fact  it  is  surprising  to  note  the  broad  range 
which  the  discussion  of  this  delicate  topic  has  in  many 
instances  assumed.  The  fundamental  point  has  been  very 


SUFFRAGE.  531 

often  entirely  ignored,  and  the  line  of  reasoning  carried 
entirely  outside  of  its  real,  legitimate  limits.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  the  Nestor  of  woman  suffrage  advocacy  so  far  as  the 
subject  in  respect  to  polemic  inquiry  is  concerned,  most 
admirably  appreciates  the  entire  position.  Starting  with 
the  cardinal  doctrine  that  there  should  be  no  discrimi- 
nation in  status  between  men  and  women  for  the  purposes 
of  suffrage,  he  brings  all  the  endeavors  of  his  clear,  incisive 
logic  and  elegant  rhetoric  to  the  single  task  of  maintaining 
that  fundamental  principle.  And  it  is  all  there  is  to  the 
affirmative  of  the  question.  Prove  that  one  point,  and  you 
prove  all.  Demonstrate  the  unwisdom  of  such  a  discrim- 
ination between  men  and  women  as  we  have  before  re- 
marked, and  you  substantiate  the  wisdom  of  their  endow- 
ment with  the  right  of  suffrage.  For  this  task  Mr.  Mill 
only  occupies  five  pages  of  his  discussion  of  the  general 
subject,  and  in  those  five  pages  he  says  all  that  can  be  said 
with  an  eye  to  relevancy — says  it  clearly,  elegantly  and  well. 

A  discrimination  is  imperative  between  men  and  women 
in  respect  to  suffrage,  whereby  the  latter  should  not  partici- 
pate in  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  for  two  reasons. 
First,  the  principle  of  female  suffrage  denies  the  natural 
condition  of  woman  as  ordained  by  God  ;  second,  it  defeats 
the  purpose  of  the  family,  and  thereby  saps  the  foundations 
of  civilization.  Of  these  in  their  order. 

First.  The  common  Father  of  humanity  has  not  indulged 
in  animal  creation  without  a  purpose.  Every  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  his  creatures  was  established  for  the  attain- 
ment of  special  ends.  In  respect  to  what  these  ends  and 
purposes  are,  God  has  not  left  mankind  in  a  state  of  uncer- 
tainty. He  has  revealed  them  as  plainly  and  conclusively 
as  though  engraven  by  an  inspired  pen  upon  the  sacred 
pages  of  Holy  Writ.  These  revelations  are  laid  in  the 
medium  of  natural  law  and  demonstrated  by  voluntary 
action.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  inherent  instinctive 


532         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

tendencies  of  animal  life.  As  Adam  Ferguson  most  beauti- 
fully puts  it,  "  Every  animal  is  made  to  delight  in  the  exer- 
cise of  its  natural  talents  and  forces  :  the  lion  and  the  tiger 
sport  with  the  paw ;  the  horse  delights  to  commit  his  mane 
to  the  wind,  and  forgets  his  pasture  to  try  his  speed  in  the 
field ;  the  bull  even  before  his  brow  is  armed,  and  the  lamb 
while  yet  an  emblem  of  innocence,  have  a  disposition  to 
strike  with  the  forehead,  and  anticipate  in  play  the  con- 
flicts they  are  doomed  to  sustain.  Man,  too,  is  disposed  to 
opposition,  and  to  employ  the  forces  of  his  nature  against 
an  equal  antagonist ;  he  loves  to  bring  his  reason,  his  elo- 
quence, his  courage,  even  his  bodily  strength,  to  the  proof. 
His  sports  are  frequently  an  image  of  war ;  sweat  and  blood 
are  freely  expended  in  play ;  and  fractures  or  death  are 
often  made  to  terminate  the  pastimes  of  idleness  and 
festivity." 

Apply  these  thoughts  to  the  separate  natures  of  manhood 
and  womanhood,  and  let  the  application  be  induced  by  a 
consideration  of  male  and  female  characteristics  and  tend- 
encies in  the  abstract,  without  confining  the  thought  to 
men  and  women.  The  theme  trenches  upon  a  delicate 
ground,  but  such  delicacy  by  no  means  stamps  it  as  invio- 
late to  the  approach  and  acquaintance  of  honest  investi- 
gation. By  virtue  of  a  natural  law  which  is  as  changeless 
and  invariable  as  the  movements  of  the  solar  system,  from 
the  lowest  order  of  the  brute  creation  to  the  highest  type 
of  animal  existence — Aristotle's  "reasoning  animal,"  man 
— the  male  species  are  found  to  be  the  depository  of  pro- 
creating power.  By  virtue  of  a  minor  law,  moreover, 
which  is  equally  immutable  as  its  chief,  the  possession  of 
this  power  is  always  supplemented  by  a  trenchant,  com- 
bative force,  which  may  be  best  termed  aggression.  On 
the  other  hand,  by  reason  of  similarly  undeviating  natural 
laws  of  a  major  and  minor  character,  the  female  species 
have  ever  been  designated  as  the  physical  guardians  of 


SUFFRAGE.  533 

embryo  life,  accompanied  perforce  by  a  necessary  but  yet 
withal  a  perfectly  natural,  inherent,  instinctive  trait  of 
retirement. 

These  moral  forces,  as  they  may  be  fittingly  termed,  not 
only  indicate,  but  they  have  ever  worked,  a  natural  assign- 
ment of  male  and  female  duty  (and  we  are  not  yet  confin- 
ing our  discussion  to  men  and  women).  The  male  lion  or 
tiger  not  only  instinctively  explores  the  forest  in  advance 
with  tentative  battle  in  quest  of  food  for  his  savage  young 
and  their  mother,  but  as  voluntarily  springs  to  the  front  to 
defend  his  subterranean  castle  and  family  against  the  attack 
of  an  invading  foe.  The  full  horse,  when  left  to  his  native 
wilds,  is  always  proud  to  lead  the  advancing  march  across 
the  unknown  prairie  or  thicket  unexplored,  and  the  male 
bird  fearlessly  heads  the  fight  against  the  falcon,  while  the 
female  summons  the  infant  brood  beneath  the  shelter  of  her 
protecting  wings. 

If  we  now  pass  from  this  view  of  these  moral  forces  of 
the  male  and  female  species  to  one  of  their  mere  physical 
characteristics  before  proceeding  with  our  original  applica- 
tion to  men  and  women  in  particular,  we  find  that  the  same 
general  principle  asserts  itself.  The  male  is  ever  the  repre- 
sentative of  physical  strength  and  enduring  power,  while 
the  female  is  always  an  exponent  of  relative  weakness  and 
non-combative  force.  Each,  in  short,  is  "made  to  delight 
in  the  exercise  of  its  natural  talents  and  forces." 

With  this  introduction  let  the  fundamental  proposition 
hereinbefore  maintained,  and  which,  for  the  most  part,  is 
so  elegantly  couched  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Ferguson  just 
cited,  be  directly  applied  to  the  distinctive  characteristics 
of  men  and  women. 

Literature  is  the  repository  of  convictions — classical  lit- 
erature is  the  storehouse  of  the  observations  of  the  world's 
best  intellect ;  all  are,  in  one  sense,  history,  and  history  is 
the  primal  proof  of  the  past.  I^t  us  see,  in  the  outset  of 
45  • 


534         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

this  immediate  inquiry,  what  the  muses  and  bards  of  history 
say  concerning  woman.     Said  England's  muse — 

"  Oh  let  not  woman's  weapons,  water-drops, 
Stain  my  man's  cheeks  ! " 

"  Her  voice  was  ever  soft, 
Gentle  and  low — an  excellent  thing  in  woman." 

"  How  easy  is  it  for  the  proper-false 
In  women's  waxen  hearts  to  set  their  forms ! " 

Said  Thomas  Otway : 

"  O  woman !  lovely  woman  !  Nature  made  thee 
To  temper  man ;  we  had  been  brutes  without  you. 
Angels  are  painted  fair  to  look  like  you." 

Said^Mr.  Ledyard :  "I  have  observed  among  all  nations 
that  women,  wherever  found,  are  the  same  kind,  civil, 
obliging,  humane,  tender  beings,  inclined  to  be  gay  and 
cheerful,  timorous  and  modest." 

Now,  these  are  neither  mere  expressions  of  sentiment 
nor  figures  of  rhetoric.  They  are  the  testimony  of  some 
of  the  most  brilliant  minds  which  Christendom  has  ever 
produced  in  respect  to  the  natural  talents  and  forces  of 
woman,  as  ordained  by  God.  The  evidences  of  a  distinct- 
ive nature  in  the  male  and  female  orders  of  creation, 
already  alluded  to,  are  peculiarly  marked  and  emphatic  in 
the  case  of  men  and  women.  Man  is  an  exponent  of  aggress- 
ive, combative  power — woman  a  representative  of  retiring, 
preserving  force.  Their  inherent,  instinctive  tendencies 
furnish  abundant  proof  of  the  ends  which  Omnipotence 
designed  to  secure  in  their  creation.  The  voluntary  choice 
of  pleasure  and  duty  which  each  is  ever  prone  to  exercise 
illustrates  both  the  peculiar  forces  with  which  they  are  en- 
dowed, and  also  the  purposes  which  they  can  most  fitting- 
ly serve.  The  boy  instinctively  finds  his  sport  in  angling, 
the  bat  and  ball,  sham  horsemanship  and  precocious  mimicry 


SUFFRAGE.  535 

of  war.  In  all  his  boyish  games,  moreover,  he  is  daring, 
boisterous,  ostentatious  and  the  insignia  of  uncompromising 
noise.  The  girl,  on  the  other  hand,  as  naturally  seeks  her 
pastime  in  petting  her  doll-formed  babe,  laying  her  mimic 
tea-table  for  imaginary  guests  and  arrogating  to  herself  the 
dignities  of  womanhood.  And  in  all  her  girlish  pleasures 
she  is  coy,  timid,  embarrassed  at  exposure,  and  a  slave  to 
modesty  and  retirement.  The  one,  still  further  impelled 
by  this  same  natural  law  of  his  being,  chooses  his  vocation 
at  the  plough,  forge,  counter,  mart  and  forum,  while  the  other 
as  intuitively  employs  her  hand  and  faculties  with  the  needle, 
pencil,  instruction  and  the  duties  of  domestic  life.  The 
sports  and  duties  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  moreover, 
are  but  an  augmentation  of  boyish  and  girlish  glee  and  toil. 

Pass  now  to  the  conditions  and  requirements  of  suffragan 
power,  and  see  if  they  are  such  as  will  naturally  enlist  the 
volunteer  talents  and  forces  of  woman  as  hereinbefore 
described — such  as  their  contemplation  and  execution  will 
afford  her  profit  and  delight. 

Politics,  however  much  it  may  be  tempered,  calls  for  the 
exercise,  both  physically  and  mentally,  of  the  strongest  and 
highest  grade  of  combative  power.  It  is  a  war  of  opinion, 
it  is  true,  as  distinguished  from  a  contest  of  mere  animal 
strength,  but  it  is  such  a  peculiar  warfare  of  ideas  that  it 
summons  its  forces  from  the  reserve  of  both  intellectual 
and  physical  resource.  A  war  of  religion  will  outstrip  it 
in  point  of  bitterness,  but  with  this  single  exception  there 
is  no  clash  of  individual  or  associated  tenets  which  draws 
so  heavily  upon  the  latent  strength  of  mind  and  body  as 
the  wager  of  political  issues.  The  reason  is  manifest.  The 
decision  of  the  struggle  is  fraught  with  results  of  the  gravest 
possible  import  to  both  the  community  at  large  and  the 
private  individual.  But  this  is  not  all.  There  is  another 
element  of  political  strife  peculiarly  incident  to  representa- 
tive forms  of  government  which  demands  consideration  in 


536          THE  ISSUES    OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

this  connection.  It  is  this.  So  long  as  the  policy  of  self- 
government  shall  be  pursued,  there  will  be  very  many  op- 
portunities for  personal  aggrandizement  growing  out  of  its 
conduct  and  supervision.  It  is  one  of  the  seemingly  irre- 
mediable evils  of  a  representative  system.  Great  reforms 
in  this  direction  are,  of  course,  possible,  but  even  when 
reform  shall  have  been  carried  to  its  utmost  limit,  this 
avenue  of  individual  ascendency  will  not  be  wholly  closed. 
It  is  an  evil  from  which  a  republican  system  can  never  be 
entirely  divorced.  It  is  idle  folly  to  expect  it.  Imperfec- 
tion, not  purity,  is  the  dominant  attribute  of  mankind,  and 
opportunities  for  private  elevation,  however  few  in  number 
or  insignificant  in  character,  will  ever  be  hotly  contested, 
not  alone  by  the  few,  but  by  the  many. 

These  political  entities  render  the  business  of  republican 
politics  not  only  wearisome  to  the  body  and  irksome  to  the 
mind,  but  they  enlist  in  the  struggle  the  strongest  passions 
of  mankind.  Look  at  the  matter  in  the  most  favorable 
light  we  will,  having  full  regard  and  making  due  allowance 
for  the  beneficial  results  of  a  representative  system,  and 
with  a  frank  and  hearty  concession  that  it  is  the  most  per- 
fect form  of  government  ever  devised  by  man,  yet  we  can- 
not escape  the  conclusion  that  its  management  is  insepa- 
rably connected  with  the  worst  and  most  pronounced  pas- 
sions of  human  nature. 

The  argument  is,  of  course,  raised  in  this  connection  that 
these  objectionable  features,  while  they  may  be  truthfully 
charged  as  incidents  of  politics  in  general,  do  not  attach 
themselves  to  the  mere  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise. 
Most  assuredly  they  do.  This  very  office  is  the  source  from 
which  the  entire  political  current  takes  its  origin.  As 
already  stated  in  a  prior  connection,  suffrage  is  the  motor- 
power  of  representative  government.  The  stream  cannot 
be  separated  from  the  fountain  without  destroying  its  iden- 
tity. Suffrage,  the  fountain-head  of  republican  politics, 


SUFFRAGE.  537 

cannot  be  walled  off,  so  to  speak,  from  the  main  political 
current  without  disintegrating  and  destroying  the  entire 
republican  system.  It  is  an  inseparable  estate,  and  the 
defects  of  the  one  are  the  defects  of  the  other. 

A  moment's  reflection  will  abundantly  corroborate  the 
statement.  As  votes  constitute  the  vehicle  upon  which 
individuals  ride  to  official  distinction,  the  possessor  of 
every  ballot  is  the  first  objective  point  of  the  seeker  of 
political  preferment.  These  place-hunters  are  "plain, 
blunt "  men.  They  are  but  slightly  troubled  with  modesty, 
and  no  rule  of  conventionalism  or  courtesy  would  be  ade- 
quate to  bar  their  approach  to  even  the  most  timorous 
classes  of  female  voters.  With  every  recurring  canvass 
they  would  be  subjected  to  all  of  the  impertinent  and 
questionable  importunities  for  their  votes  with  which  repub- 
lican politics  ever  has  been  and  ever  will  be  associated,  and 
dragged  nolens  volens  through  all  the  mire  and  sloughs  of  a 
political  campaign. 

But  this  is  not  all,  nor  an  equal  part.  The  right  of  suf- 
frage does  not  end  with  voting.  Voters  will  be  voted  for, 
or,  rather,  they  will  essay  that  distinction.  Denial  of  this 
last  statement  is  entirely  useless.  The  woman  who  has  a 
taste  for  voting,  who  takes  delight  in  the  exercise  of  such  a 
power,  has  the  concomitant  relish  for  holding  office.  There 
is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion.  If  we  look  at  the  pres- 
ent list  of  female  claimants  for  the  privilege  of  suffrage,  we 
will  find  that  the  entire  number,  without  a  single  exception, 
desire  to  vote  simply  because  they  desire  to  be  voted  for. 
With  the  ballot  in  their  possession,  then,  they  are  reduced 
— that  is,  all  of  them  who  would  ever  attend  the  polls — to  the 
blatantly  vulgar  and  indiscriminate  scramble  for  office  which, 
of  necessity,  characterizes  republican  politics. 

The  inquiry  is  now  pertinent :  Are  these  habits,  customs, 
duties  and  offices  such  that  woman,  for  their  performance, 
would  take  delight  in  employing  the  talents  and  forces 

X2 


S38          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

already  described  which  distinguish  her  sex  from  the  male 
portion  of  community?  Are  they  in  consonance  with  the 
inherent  modesty  and  retirement  of  genuine  womanhood  ? 
Do  they  open  a  fitting  field  for  the  exercise  of  the  pecu- 
liarly dependent  nature  with  which,  as  a  general  rule,  God 
has  characterized  this  portion  of  the  human  family  ?  Are 
they  in  keeping  with  her  traditional  loveliness  and  gentle- 
ness ?  Is  even  the  maintenance  of  her  purity,  virtue  and 
chastity  possible  when  thrown  into  such  associations  and 
surroundings?  Are  not,  in  short,  the  requirements  of  suf- 
frage totally  opposed  to  the  nature  of  the  agencies,  forces, 
talents  and  powers  with  which  alone  God  has  endowed 
woman?  Do  not,  indeed,  its  demands  call  upon  her  to 
stultify  her  nature,  tastes,  instincts  and  desires  ?  Is  not,  in 
fact,  their  performance  entirely  inconsistent  with  her  physi- 
cal weakness  ?  Is  not  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise 
a  traducer  of  the  natural  elements  of  her  creation  ? 

The  plea  is  here  interposed  that  all  these  impurities  of 
politics  will  be  diminished,  if  not  wholly  removed,  by  the 
institution  of  female  suffrage.  Not  at  all.  Allowing,  for 
argument's  sake,  that  the  generality  of  women  would  vote 
were  they  possessed  of  the  privilege,  the  race  of  personal 
aggrandizement,  with  its  corrupting  and  enervating  tenden- 
cies, would  by  no  means  slacken  its  pace.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  would  welcome  the  new  order  of  things  as  an  ad- 
ditional agency  to  accelerate  its  speed  and  make  easier  the 
pathway  of  ascent.  Wherever  representative  government 
exists  this  objectionable  feature  of  politics  will  ever  cling  to 
its  skirts,  until  the  human  shall  become  superhuman,  until 
imperfection  shall  robe  itself  with  purity.  Woman  would 
be  powerless  to  cleanse  this  Augean  stable  of  its  impurity, 
but  would  become  contaminated  with  its  corrupting  influ- 
ences instead. 

The  attempted  institution  of  woman  suffrage,  in  short,  is 
but  a  simple  effort  to  reverse  the  order  of  natural  law.  It 


SUFFRAGE.  539 

is  a  contradiction  of  God's  ordinances,  and  an  erroneous 
interpretation  of  His  revealed  will  as  seen  in  the  talents 
and  forces  which  He  has  attached  to  womanhood.  These 
ordinances  of  Omnipotence  man  is  powerless  to  repeal. 
They  may  suffer  violence  by  his  indiscretion,  but  their 
abrogation  he  will  never  compass,  for  their  foundation  is 
beyond  his  reach. 

Second.  Woman  suffrage  defeats  the  purpose  of  the 
family,  and  thereby  saps  the  foundations  of  civilization. 

Upon  this  remaining  point  very  little  need  be  said.  Very 
much  of  the  immediate  preceding  comment  is  applicable  to 
this  inquiry.  The  brief  discussion  of  the  general  proposi- 
tion will  proceed  in  the  inverse  order  of  its  statement. 

The  first  and  last  step  from  barbarism  to  civilization  is 
laid  upon  the  foundation  of  social  organism.  Clanship  is 
the  herald  of  its  advent,  and  the  family  is  the  ultimate 
guardian  of  both  its  existence  and  progress.  Ancient  and 
modern  history  confirms  the  statement.  Wherever  the 
family  has  existed  the  badges  of  civilization  have  been  ever 
apparent.  And  wherever  its  sanctity  has  been  most  re- 
spected the  foothold  of  civilization  has  been  the  surest  and 
its  advance  the  most  rapid.  In  republican  countries  this  is 
particularly  the  case.  Representative  government,  self- 
government,  is  based  upon  self -fitness.  Man  cannot  govern 
himself  in  the  absence  of  either  intelligence  or  moral  con- 
victions. Both  of  these  entities  are  incidents  of  the  family. 
It  emulates  the  one  and  is  the  natural  parent  of  the  other. 
The  position  is  too  clear  to  admit  of  doubt  or  require  argu- 
ment to  prove  its  truthfulness.  Its  correctness,  indeed,  is 
a  point  of  universal  concession.  With  this  point  conceded, 
that  upon  the  preservation  of  the  family  rests  the  safety  of 
civilization,  the  sequitur  is  not  susceptible  of  honest  denial 
that  the  destruction  of  the  family  is  the  jeopardy  of  civiliz- 
ing tendencies.  The  destruction  of  the  family,  moreover, 
lies  in  the  thwarting  of  its  purposes ;  and  this  last  is  one  of 


54°         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  ends  of  woman  suffrage.  A  brief  view  of  the  purposes 
of  the  family,  coupled  with  an  implied  citation  of  female 
attributes,  hereinbefore  described,  will  furnish  abundant 
warrant  for  the  assertion  that  such  is  the  result  of  woman 
suffrage. 

The  purposes  of  the  family,  although  manifold  if  enume- 
rated in  detail,  are  reducible  to  two  generic  heads — namely, 
the  inculcation  and  preservation  of  morality,  and  the  aug- 
mentation of  the  species.  It  is  unnecessary  to  paraphrase 
these  generic  propositions.  The  bearings  of  the  first  are 
wellnigh  wholly  covered  by  the  spirit  of  the  scriptural 
teaching  that  the  marital  clanship  of  men  and  women  is  the 
primal  safeguard  of  public  morality.  The  direct  essence 
of  this  marital  relation  is  the  confidence  of  affection,  and 
its  natural,  imperative  condition  is  the  total  removal  of  all 
the  incidents  of  its  sacred  duties,  privileges  and  trusts  from 
the  gossip  and  scrutiny  of  the  outer  world.  Everything 
which  trenches  upon  this  condition  of  the  marital  state  tends 
to  destroy  the  confidence  which  is  the  primal  element  of 
the  relation.  The  security  of  both  is  at  present  surrounded 
with  enough  of  difficulty.  Their  inviolacy  is  almost  an 
impossibility.  The  marital  joinder  of  one  man  and  one 
woman  for  life,  sanctioned  as  it  is  by  God,  indorsed  by 
mankind,  and  alone  tolerable  for  the  genuine  purposes  of 
society  and  civilization,  is  not  a  union  which  is  or  ever  can 
be  entirely  free  from  moral  and  social  difficulties  and  em- 
barrassments. The  differences  of  humanity  will  not  permit 
it.  Like  all  living  in  pairs,  like  all  clanship,  its  successful 
continuance  is  the  result  of  compromise. 

Passing  now  to  the  second  generic  head  of  family  pur- 
pose, as  already  stated,  the  discussion  grasps  the  keenest 
trial  and  most  sacred  sphere  of  womanhood — maternity. 
The  slightest  comment  upon  the  nature  and  associations 
of  this  delicate  office  is  almost  an  act  of  violence.  We  will 
intrude  upon  neither  the  keenness  of  its  sufferings  nor  the 


SUFFRAGE.  541 

sacredness  of  its  trusts,  but  let  the  eloquence  of  a  silence  to 
which  its  duplex  nature  of  delicacy  and  suffering  most  em- 
phatically entitles  it  plead  for  its  total  divorcement  from 
the  exacting  and  trenchant  duties  of  public  life,  as  well  as 
from  the  more  excusable  approach  of  honest  investigation. 

Marry  now,  if  you  will,  these  purposes  of  the  family  to 
politics  through  the  agency  of  woman  suffrage,  and  how 
long  will  the  first  withstand  the  perils  of  the  bridal  ? 
Link,  if  you  will,  the  public  and  exposed  duties  and  asso- 
ciations of  the  one  to  the  imperative  seclusion  of  the  other, 
and  how  long  will  the  sacredness  and  inviolacy  of  the  last 
form  an  element  of  the  joinder  ?  Merge,  if  you  will,  the 
passions,  the  bickerings,  the  strifes,  the  vulgarity  and  the 
bitterness  of  politics  with  the  tender  relations  of  family 
affection  and  confidence  and  the  holy  toils  of  maternity, 
and  how  long  will  the  institution  of  the  family  preserve 
itself?  how  long  before  this  corner-stone  of  civilization 
will  crumble  to  ashes  beneath  its  unnatural  burden?  It 
would  wilt,  like  the  tender  plant  which  it  is,  beneath  the 
scorching  heat  of  the  atmosphere  of  its  new  associations. 
History  attests  the  statement,  and  sets  its  seal  in  advance 
upon  the  correctness  of  the  prediction.  Let  the  doubter 
look  to  the  status  of  almost  any  family  wherein  its  female 
head  has  clamored  for  the  right  of  suffrage,  and  read  his 
answer  there. 

There  are  two  collateral  points  which  demand  a  passing 
notice  before  the  present  chapter  shall  be  brought  to  a  close. 
They  are  these  :  First.  Woman  suffrage,  in  view  of  the  ele- 
ment of  sexual  passion  with  which  Omnipotence  has  charac- 
terized both  man  and  woman,  would  give  representative 
politics  a  send-off  for  a  lower  plane  of  corruption  than 
that  which  it  now  occupies,  if  it  did  not,  indeed,  work  its 
total  annihilation.  Second.  Women,  as  a  sex,  protest 
against  their  endowment  with  the  elective  franchise.  Of 
these  but  a  single  word. 

40 


542          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

We  cannot  escape  the  conclusion  of  the  first  statement, 
either  by  blank  denial  or  the  allegation  that  it  is  a  libel 
upon  the  purity  and  virtue  of  humanity.  It  is  not.  It  is, 
in  one  sense,  a  lamentable  truth.  Granting  the  ascend- 
ency of  purity  and  virtue  in  general,  the  stubborn  fact  still 
stares  us  in  the  face  that  in  all  planes  of  social  organism 
this  element  of  sexual  passion,  to  some  extent,  oversteps 
the  limits  of  both  moral  and  human  laws.  Politics  and 
politicians  are  no  exception  to  the  rule,  and  with  the  insti- 
tution of  woman  suffrage  this  element  of  sexual  passion 
would  generate  the  most  formidable  engine  of  bribery 
which  has  ever  made  an  impress  upon  our  political  annals. 
Let  the  skeptic  reader  spend  a  winter  in  Washington  and 
note  the  habits  and  success  of  women-lobbyists  if  he  wishes 
his  doubts  removed. 

Upon  the  last  collateral  point  above  stated  the  bare 
assertion  needs  no  support.  In  all  the  years  in  which  the 
advocates  of  woman  suffrage  have  urged  their  claims  the 
great  majority  of  women  have  indignantly  denied  the  forced 
inference  that  they  lent  their  endorsement  to  the  scheme. 
They  have  not  and  do  not,  and  the  opposition  is  more  pro- 
nounced and  extended  to-day  than  when  the  theory  first 
invited  public  sanction.  The  scheme  must  fail.  It  rests 
upon  a  foundation  insecure.  It  traduces  the  order  of 
Nature  and  contradicts  the  law  of  God. 


MINORITY  REPRESENTATION.  543 

CHAPTER    III. 

MINORITY  REPRESENTA  TION. 

The  Question  as  Connected  with  Republicanism — The  Same  in  Refer- 
ence to  the  Will  of  the  Majority — Minority  Representation  Defined 
— The  Legitimate  Scope  of  Suffrage  in  this  Connection — How  Ma- 
jority Representation  works  Disfranchisement — The  Primal  Claim 
of  Minority  Representation — The  Same  as  seen  in  Legislation — 
Majority  Representation  Proscribes  Intellect — Also  Fosters  Class 
Legislation — How  Minority  Representation  would  obviate  these 
Difficulties — The  Means  of  its  Adoption — Cumulative  Voting  Con- 
sidered— Thomas  Hare's  System  the  Best  ever  Devised — The  Same 
Simple,  Effectual  and  Impartial — Fully  explained. 

AS  both  the  motor-power  and  means  of  defence  for 
republican  forms  of  government  rest  with  the  suf- 
frages of  the  people,  the  purest  republicanism  is  that  in 
which  a  representation  of  the  entire  people  is  most  per- 
fectly secured.  The  question  of  suffrage  in  the  abstract  is 
one  thing,  but  the  regulation  of  suffrage,  so  that  its  exercise 
shall  in  all  cases  affect  the  construction  and  operation  of  gov- 
ernmental machinery,  is  quite  another.  From  the  earliest 
periods  of  democracy  and  republicanism  the  application  of 
suffragan  power  to  the  direct  purposes  of  government  has, 
for  the  most  part,  been  made  with  respect  to  the  principle 
that  the  will  of  the  majority  should  be  not  only  supreme, 
but  exclusive.  The  principle  is  partially  right  and  partly 
wrong.  Generally  speaking,  in  so  far  as  it  requires  that 
the  will  of  the  majority  should  be  supreme,  the  doctrine  is 
eminently  sound  and  wholesome,  but  in  respect  to  the  ele- 
ment of  exclusiveness  it  is  wholly  untenable.  The  exact 
limitations  of  its  supremacy  will  fully  appear  in  the  follow- 
ing remarks,  which  will  have  to  do  with  the  subject  natu- 
rally suggested  by  these  preliminary  statements — namely, 
Minority  Representation. 


544        THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Minority  representation  finds  an  effegtual  expounder  as 
to  its  abstract  meaning  in  the  term  itself.  For  this  purpose 
it  is  its  own  herald  and  teacher.  As  the  phrase  indicates, 
it  means  a  representation  in  governmental  polity  of  that 
portion  of  the  voting  population  which  the  system  of 
majority  rule  excludes  therefrom.  It  aims  to  secure  the 
representation  of  all,  instead  of  the  major  portion.  It  seeks 
to  have  the  opinions  of  the  entire  voting  class  tell  upon 
the  construction  and  operation  of  governmental  machinery, 
instead  of  leaving  its  formation  and  management  in  the 
hands  of  a  numerical  majority.  It  wars,  in  short,  against 
the  exclusiveness  of  majority  rule.  These  statements  are 
somewhat  close  in  their  character,  but  a  presentation  of  the 
claims  of  minority  representation  in  detail  will  render  both 
their  import  and  relevancy  clearly  apparent. 

The  institution  of  suffrage  contemplates  self-government ; 
and  the  scheme,  to  be  consistent  and  effectual,  should 
establish  a  government  of  all  by  all.  Democracies  and 
republics  have  ever  challenged  the  acquaintance  of  man- 
kind as  the  only  prominent  agencies  which  have  either 
sought  or  attained  that  end.  They  have  both,  indeed, 
striven  in  that  direction,  but  both  likewise  have  failed  of 
reaching  the  desired  goal.  Pure  democratic  rule,  as  ex- 
plained in  the  next  preceding  chapter,  which  provides  for 
no  compromise  of  individual  opinion,  which  requires  no 
yielding  on  the  part  of  the  few  in  favor  of  the  many,  works 
a  confusion  and  disorder  which  is  not  a  mere  semblance 
of  anarchy:  it  is  anarchy  itself.  As  a  cure  for  demo- 
cratic chaos,  without  working  the  overthrow  of  self-govern- 
ment and  individual  liberty,  republicanism  invited  Chris- 
tendom to  its  adoption.  Its  advertised  cure  consisted  in 
the  prescription  of  a  majority  rule,  both  supreme  and  exclu- 
sive. It  is  not  a  cure.  It  proceeded  one  step  too  far.  Its 
exclusiveness  robs  it  of  completeness.  It  is  an  improve- 
ment upon  the  institution  which  it  supplanted,  but  although 


MINORITY  REPRESENTATION.  545 

divorced  from  the  chaotic  evil  of  its  predecessor,  it  is 
wedded  to  one  but  a  single  remove  therefrom — disfran- 
chisement. 

There  is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion.  This  is  one  of 
the  ends  of  our  present  republicanism.  It  virtually  and 
practically,  although  not  by  force  of  law,  disfranchises  every 
voter  who  differs  from  the  major  portion  of  his  fellows. 
Neither  his  voice  nor  his  vote  has  an  influence  in  the  work 
of  constructing  and  operating  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment. It  seems  almost  an  anomaly  in  the  history  of 
civilization  that  the  free  countries  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  should  have  progressed,  one  for  a  space  of 
five  hundred  years,  and  the  other  for  a  century,  without 
removing  this  defect  in  their  constitutional  polities.  Minor- 
ity representation  has  been  slightly  introduced  in  England, 
it  is  true,  and  the  State  of  Illinois  has  within  a  year  or  two 
laudably  initiated  the  experiment;  but  the  reform  would 
have  been  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  civilization  of  at 
least  fifty  years  ago.  Instead  of  that,  we  find  it  still  court- 
ing acceptance  from  the  great  majority  of  the  people  of 
both  countries. 

The  primal  claim  of  minority  representation  is  thus  seen 
in  this  prime  defect  of  majority  rule.  Let  this  negative 
line  of  inquiry  be  still  farther  pursued,  and  therein  look 
respectively  for  minor  claims  in  minor  defects. 

For  this  purpose  let  the  workings  of  legislation  in  pur- 
suance of  a  strict  majority  rule  be  submitted,  in  one  par- 
ticular, to  a  brief  examination.  Let  it  be  supposed,  as  is 
frequently  the  case,  that  a  legislative  body  is  composed  of 
members  who  owe  their  election  to  the  will  of  a  bare 
majority  of  the  voting  masses.  With  this  fact  in  view,  let 
the  statement  receive  a  moment's  reflection  that  this  legis- 
lative body,  which  represents  the  bare  majority  of  the  rating 
masses,  will  not  adopt  a  single  enactment,  will  not  frame  a 
single  law,  by  a  unanimous  vote.  Nay  more,  it  will  very 
46  • 


THE   ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

rarely  do  it  by  a  two-thirds  vote.  Both  history  and  the 
impossibility  of  perfectly  reconciling  the  differences  of 
individual  opinion  furnish  an  abundant  warrant  for  the 
assertion.  The  result  is,  that  in  legislative  bodies  composed 
of  members  elected  by  a  bare  majority  of  the  voting  masses 
nine-tenths  of  all  the  legislation  which  such  a  body  adopts — 
although  perfectly  valid  and  legal  by  virtue  of  majority  repre- 
sentation— is  in  direct  violation  of  the  will  of  the  majority  of  the 
voting  masses.  Does  the  statement  require  paraphrasing  to 
make  it  clear  ?  If  so,  as  follows  :  The  legislative  body  is 
chosen  by  a  bare  majority  of  those  who  exercise  the  elective 
franchise.  Its  laws,  to  be  the  representatives  of  the  will  of 
the  majority  of  the  entire  voting  population,  must  become 
such  by  the  assent  of  very  nearly  the  entire  body.  Instead 
of  this,  they  receive  the  sanction,  upon  an  average,  of  only 
a  little  more  than  one-half  of  its  members — its  laws  are 
framed  by  a  mere  majority  of  the  men  whose  authority  to  so 
act  is  derived  from  a  bare  majority  of  the  entire  voting  popu- 
lation— which  is  legislation  by  a  minority  of  a  suffragan 
people.  The  designation  of  such  government  by  the  name 
republicanism  is  an  abuse  of  terms.  It  does  not  array  itself 
in  robes  of  that  character.  It  is  the  raiment  of  despotic 
power. 

Again,  the  principle  of  strict  majority  representation  pre- 
cludes the  best  intellect  of  a  country  from  participating  in 
its  government — not  by  force  of  law,  but  by  virtue  of 
attendant  circumstances  which  are  equally  compulsory. 
The  general  tendencies  of  republican  politics  under  a 
regime  of  majority  representation  are  too  well  known  to 
require  extended  comment.  It  is  a  fact  as  notorious  as  it 
is  lamentable  that  in  the  scramble  for  office,  for  which  a 
strict  majority  rule  constantly  offers  a  premium,  the  lower 
orders  of  men,  for  the  most  part,  alone  participate.  Intel- 
lect and  cultured  thought  instinctively  keep  aloof  from  the 
disgusting  struggle.  Anticipating  here  the  method  of 


MINORITY  REPRESENTATION.  547 

minority  representation  hereinafter  advocated,  but  taking 
it  upon  trust  that  it  would  secure  a  representation  of  minor- 
ities in  every  field  of  governmental  action,  the  proposition 
is  ventured  that  the  representatives  of  these  minorities  would 
be  taken  from  the  strongest  and  best  minds  which  a  people 
might  possess.  Such  a  course,  indeed,  would  be  aosolutely 
compulsory.  As  the  minority  would  have  the  fewest  repre- 
sentatives, and  as,  moreover,  in  pursuance  of  the  plan 
hereinafter  urged,  such  representatives  might  be  chosen 
from  candidates  irrespective  of  locality,  who  would  be,  in 
any  section,  advanced  for  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  the 
numerical  majority,  in  the  first  instance,  could  only  be 
neutralized,  and  the  choice  of  home  representatives,  in  the 
second  instance,  alone  be  secured,  by  putting  the  ablest 
men  of  the  country  in  nomination. 

A  highly  beneficial  though  indirect  effect  of  the  foregoing 
would  be  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  representatives  of  the 
majority.  Ability  can  only  be  matched  by  ability.  Numer- 
ical strength  is  not  its  peer ;  and  the  only  way  in  which, 
intellectually  speaking,  a  weak  majority  could  withstand 
the  encroachments  and  exposures  of  a  strong  minority 
would  be  to  choose  their  representatives  from  a  higher 
grade  of  their  population.  This  is  by  no  means  naked  and 
unproductive  or  impractical  theory.  It  is  mere  loyalty  to 
natural  law,  a  simple  response  to  the  order  of  cause  and 
effect.  The  bids  of  the  political  hucksters  of  a  majority 
for  votes  would  soon  cease  to  be  accepted  with  the  brain 
of  a  cultured  minority  cutting  its  way  to  the  seat  of  a  gov- 
ernment's directory. 

Still  further,  a  strict  majority  rule  fosters  class  legislation. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  direct  and  natural  tendencies  of 
the  system.  It  results  in  the  formation  of  legislative  bodies 
which  are  composed  exclusively  of  the  representatives  of  a 
faction,  and  by  virtue  of  a  mongrel  species  of  political  loy- 
alty their  legislation  is  shaped  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 


548         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

purposes  of  such  exclusive  class.  Such  legislation  bears  the 
impress  of  the  prime  evil  of  an  aristocratic  form  of  govern- 
ment— legislation  by  the  few — without  its  redeeming  charac- 
teristic, that  the  laws  emanating  from  the  will  of  the  minority 
are  intended  for  the  benefit  of  all ;  for  under  a  strict  ma- 
jority rule  the  primal  and  sole  aim  of  legislation  is  to 
advance  the  interests  of  the  party  which  placed  the  law- 
maker in  power. 

Viewing  the  matter  in  the  abstract,  the  precise  limits  of 
minority  representation  are  easily  appreciable.  To  measure 
these  limits  by  a  single  proposition,  the  statement  is  vouch- 
safed as  one  entirely  adequate,  that  minority  representation 
does  not  dispute  the  ultimate  supremacy  of  majority  rule, 
but  seeks  to  defeat  its  exclusiveness.  In  other  words,  in  all 
departments  of  governmental  action  the  will  of  the  ma- 
jority must  determine  the  ultimate  result,  but  the  opinion 
of  the  minority  should  be  allowed  full  force  in  influencing 
and  shaping  the  intermediate  steps  by  which  such  ultimate 
result  may  be  reached. 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  advance  further  argument  in 
defence  of  the  institution.  Its  justice  is  too  apparent  and 
the  tenability  of  its  claims  too  indisputable  to  require  an 
extended  assault  upon  its  opponents.  In  fact,  compara- 
tively speaking,  it  has  no  opponents.  The  forces  arrayed 
against  it  are,  for  the  most  part,  entirely  passive.  They 
withhold  their  sanction  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have 
not  acquainted  themselves  with  its  character. 

Resting  the  defence  of  the  system  in  general  at  this  point 
of  the  discussion,  the  particular  method  in  which  the  same 
shall  be  put  in  practice  will  now  be  briefly  examined.  In 
respect  to  this  various  expedients  have  been  suggested, 
which  may  be  properly  classed  under  the  generic  term  of 
cumulative  voting.  These  schemes  have  assumed  one  or 
the  other  of  the  following  forms — namely :  that  certain 
constituencies  should  be  allotted  a  certain  number  of  repre- 


MINORITY  REPRESENTATION.  549 

sentatives,  and  that  each  elector  should  be  allowed  to  vote 
for  a  major  portion  of  the  list;  the  same  allotment,  with 
the  provision  that  each  elector  should  cast  his  ballot  for 
only  one  candidate ;  and  again,  the  same  allotment,  allowing 
each  elector  to  cast  all  the  votes  to  which  the  same  entitled 
him  upon  any  one  of  the  candidates  in  nomination.  These 
are  but  very  imperfect  plans,  and  do  not,  with  any  great 
degree  of  certainty  or  satisfaction,  even  approximate  to  the 
removal  of  the  evils  of  a  strict  system  of  majority  repre- 
sentation. John  Stuart  Mill  appropriately  styles  them 
"makeshifts." 

It  seems  to  have  been  left  to  Thomas  Hare,  an  English 
economist,  to  devise  a  scheme  which  is  at  the  same  time 
both  simple  and  effectual.  For  a  full  examination  of 
Mr.  Hare's  system  the  curious  are  referred  to  his  work 
entitled  "Treatise  on  the  Election  of  Representatives." 
So  far  as  the  purposes  of  American  politics  are  concerned, 
the  following  analysis  of  his  scheme  will  prove  sufficient 
for  the  general  reader. 

Its  first  feature  is  an  apportionment  of  representatives 
upon  a  basis  of  ordinary  average — namely  :  the  number  of 
voters  who  would  be  entitled  to  a  representative  in  any 
legislative  body  would  be  ascertained  by  dividing  the  ag- 
gregate number  of  the  voting  population  by  the  number  of 
seats  in  such  body.  In  respect  \Q  the  manner  of  balloting, 
voters  would  be  required  to  cast  their  votes  in  the  locality 
where  they  resided,  but  would  be  permitted  to  give  them  for 
any  candidate  in  nomination  for  a  seat  in  the  legislative  body, 
•whether  residing  in  the  same  place  with  the  voter  or  in  any 
portion  of  the  country,  and  any  candidate  who  should  receive 
a  sufficient  number  of  votes,  as  indicated  by  the  average  above 
described,  would  be  considered  duly  elected,  without  respect  to 
the  locality  of  the  voters  by  whose  suffrage  the  choice  would 
be  made.  The  next  provision  of  the  scheme  allows  a  voter 
to  place  upon  his  ballot  the  names  of  other  candidates  in 


550         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

addition  to  the  one  whom  he  first  prefers,  and  the  order  in 
which  the  names  shall  appear  shall  be  considered  the  order 
of  his  preference.  The  ballot  ultimately  would  be  counted 
only  in  support  of  one  candidate,  but  if  the  one  first  pre- 
ferred should  fail  of  an  election,  the  vote  might  be  counted  in 
favor  of  any  other  candidate  whose  name  might  appear  upon 
the  voting  paper,  whose  election  could  be,  in  such  manner, 
secured.  To  obviate  a  difficulty  which  might  arise  at  this 
stage  of  the  proceeding,  a  failure  in  obtaining  a  full  number 
of  members  for  the  legislative  body  by  reason  of  popular  can- 
didates absorbing  all  the  votes,  Mr.  Hare  provides  that  no 
more  ballots  should  be  counted  in  favor  of  any  one  candi- 
date than  might  be  necessary  to  secure  his  election  in  pur- 
suance of  the  average  apportionment  above  described. 
The  remainder  should  be  counted  in  favor  of  other  candi- 
dates whose  names  might  appear  upon  the  voting  papers, 
whose  choice  could  be  effected  by  such  appropriation  and 
in  the  order  of  preference  as  before  stated.  There  are 
many  minor  provisions  connected  with  the  scheme  for  the 
regulation  of  details,  ministerial  and  not  discretionary, 
which  are  entirely  simple  in  their  character  and  do  not 
here  require  mention.  The  foregoing  contains  the  sub- 
stance of  the  entire  plan  in  its  most  important  particulars. 

Words  of  commendation  are  quite  unnecessary  in  favor 
of  the  elective  innovation  which  Mr.  Hare  proposes.  It 
relieves  an  elector  from  the  unpleasant  task  of  voting  for 
an  objectionable  candidate  which  his  locality  may  have 
placed  in  nomination  ;  prevents  a  consequent  waste  of  votes 
from  mere  passivity ;  gives  the  minority,  by  virtue  of  the 
privilege  of  concentrating  its  votes  upon  any  candidate, 
whether  local  or  otherwise,  and  in  the  order  of  preference, 
a  fair  and  equal  representation  ;  defeats  local  and  class  leg- 
islation ;  makes  merit  the  prime  requisite  of  both  majority 
and  minority  candidates,  and  thereby  vetoes  the  power  of 
moneyed  and  other  illegal  and  improper  agencies  over  the 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  551 

deliberations  of  legislative  bodies.  Its  effectiveness,  more- 
over, is  only  equaled  by  its  simplicity. 

Its  application  to  the  republican  politics  of  the  United 
States  is  entirely  feasible  and  free  from  difficulty.  It  would 
not  require  the  slightest  modification  for  the  purposes  of 
electing  the  members  of  our  national  House  of  Represen- 
tatives, both  branches  of  our  State  legislatures,  and  the 
minor  organizations  of  city,  town  and  village  administra- 
tion. The  choice  of  our  national  Senators  also,  although 
effected  by  the  action  of  members  of  our  State  legislatures, 
might  be  placed,  for  the  most  part,  under  the  government 
of  this  most  wholesome  institution. 

The  adoption  of  minority  representation,  indeed,  must 
eventually  be  recorded  upon  the  annals  of  the  American 
republic.  Our  politics  will  never  be  entirely  purified,  our 
governmental  polity  will  never  be  able  to  show  a  valid 
claim  to  the  title  of  republicanism,  until  this  salutary  sys- 
tem shall  have  become  incorporated  into  the  organic  law  of 
the  nation. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER. 

State  Rights  vs.  National  Authority  —  The  Difficulty  attending  the 
Settlement  of  the  Possession  of  Power — A  Task  of  Civilization — 
The  Claim  for  Centralization  based  on  certain  Alleged  Necessities — 
How  Centralization  concerns  the  United  States — The  Nature  and 
Origin  of  the  General  Government — The  Jeflfersonian  Theory  of 
State  Rights  considered — Secession  refuted — The  Proper  Line  of 
Division  between  Slate  and  National  Authority — The  Constitution 
has  Defined  it  by  Conferring  certain  Joint  and  Exclusive  Powers — 
These  Powers  Enumerated — The  Canons  by  which  they  are  Desig- 
nated Joint  and  Exclusive — The  Instances  in  which  the  General 
Government  has  Clashed  with  State  Authority — The  Instances  in 
which  it  has  in  this  manner  Violated  the  Constitution — Mostly  Con- 


552         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

fined  to  the  Present  Administration — -Instances  in  this  connection 
Numerous — The  Present  Administration  Arraigned — Its  Faults 
Stated  in  Detail — Lawlessness  its  Prime  Defect — The  Chief  Exe- 
cutive, Congress  and  the  Departments  all  Involved — Centralization 
not  Required  except  in  respect  to  Suffrage — Why  Required  here — 
The  Evils  it  would  Abolish  and  Prevent — Ignorance  the  Chief 
Agency  which  essays  Federal  Usurpation — The  same  a  Cumulative 
Fault  of  the  Present  Administration — Conclusion — Bismarck's  Edict 
of  Law — The  Present  Need  of  the  American  People  seen  in  Present 
Abuses  of  Official  Trust — Absolutism  of  some  sort  needed  in  Every 
Government — This  in  the  United  States  is  the  Inviolability  of  its 
Organic  and  Municipal  Law — The  Sole  Kings  of  the  People — The 
Immediate  Antecedents  of  the  American  People  give  a  Reason  for 
Present  Official  Lawlessness — The  Necessary  Rule  for  Official  Con- 
duct. 

THIS  inquiry  proposes  to  deal  with  the  subject  of  State 
Rights  vs.  National  Authority. 

There  are  certain  questions  of  governmental  polity  which, 
from  their  peculiar  nature,  will  never  receive  the  seal  of 
even  temporary  settlement  until  the  highest  order  of  civili- 
zation shall  have  laid  its  hand  upon  every  member  of  the 
human  brotherhood  that  shall  be  allowed  a  voice  in  the 
direction  of  public  affairs.  Of  these  questions  there  are 
none  more  prominent  than  the  one  which  stands  at  the 
head  of  the  present  chapter.  In  attempts  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem, philosophic  Greece,  emerging  from  Eastern  obscurity, 
strode  to  the  foreground  of  the  world's  vista,  and  there, 
with  her  own  hand,  marked  out  her  grave ;  Rome,  the 
acknowledged  lawgiver  of  the  civilized  world,  impaled 
herself  upon  the  sceptre  which  her  own  skill  had  wrought ; 
modern  Gaul  is  constantly  vacillating  between  life  and 
death ;  Germany,  the  queen  of  cultured  thought,  still 
struggles  in  the  morass  of  doubt;  Britain,  with  all  its 
wisdom,  yet  seeks  the  end ;  the  rest  of  Europe,  almost 
without  method,  is  essaying  to  penetrate  the  cloud ;  and 
the  American  republic,  with  the  record  of  eighteen 
hundred  years  shedding  light  upon  its  pathway,  has  but 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  553 

just  ceased  to  irrigate  its  fields  with  blood,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  the  centralization  of  power  constitutes  one  of  the 
prime  issues  which  still  defeats  a  genuine  union  of  its  com- 
ponent States. 

The  reason  is  plainly  manifest  The  cause  of  the  diffi- 
culty lies  squarely  upon  the  surface.  Nations  are  but  con- 
cretions of  individuals,  and  the  government  of  the  former 
emanates  from  the  combined  will  of  all  or  a  portion  of  the 
latter.  Power  is  the  most  seductive  agency  with  which  a 
common  humanity  can  be  brought  in  contact.  Its  posses- 
sion is  the  grand  goal  of  mankind,  and  its  concession  is  the 
last  prerogative  with  which  man  will  part.  Such  conces- 
sion is  ever  the  result  of  compromise,  and  the  latter  is 
effected  only  in  pursuance  of  the  belief  that  the  real  good 
of  all  will  be  thereby  advanced.  In  this  connection,  more- 
over, the  fact  crowds  itself  to  the  foreground  that  the  limit 
of  this  concession  of  power  by  means  of  compromise  is 
exactly  commensurate  with  the  education,  the  civilization, 
of  the  people  from  whom  it  is  sought.  The  truth  of  the 
statement  is  founded  upon  the  working  of  natural  law. 
The  prime  attribute  of  the  brute  (let  it  not  be  confounded 
with  firmness)  is  stubbornness.  "I  will"  is  its  logic,  and 
"I  will  not"  is  its  law.  The  brute  is  but  the  lower  order 
of  the  savage  j  the  latter  is  but  the  lowest  type  of  man ; 
and  the  primal  condition  of  this  "reasoning  animal"  is 
ignorance.  It  is  impossible  for  man,  in  this  condition  of 
his  being,  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  liberty  is  but  a  rela- 
tive term — that,  in  the  language  of  the  duke  of  Argyll,  it 
is  only  freedom1  from  compulsion.  He  fails  to  see  how  the 
exchange  of  al>solute  for  relative  freedom,  the  sacrifice  of 
brute  force  for  digested  law,  the  concession  of  brute  power 
by  means  of  compromise,  can  benefit  both  the  masses  and 
himself.  This  is  a  task  of  civilization. 

Approaching  nearer  to  the  direct  consideration  of  the 
main  topic,  the  centralization  of  power,  in  view  of  the 
4T  Y 


554         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

abstract  truths  above  stated,  is  based  upon  certain  alleged 
necessities.  These  necessities  are — the  singleness  and  cer- 
tainty of  the  governing  power,  the  prevention  of  confusion, 
and  the  consequent  advancement  of  the  general  good. 
These  necessities,  moreover,  are  both  perfectly  plausible 
and  defensible.  A  detailed  examination  of  the  same  will 
not  be  made  in  this  connection.  Their  appropriate  limits 
will  sufficiently  appear  in  the  following  comment,  and  the 
same  will  refer  exclusively  to  the  bearings  of  the  main  topic 
upon  the  status  of  the  American  republic. 

In  the  United  States  this  question  of  the  centralization  of 
power  assumes  the  form  of  an  alleged  warfare  of  the  Gene- 
ral Government  upon  the  dogma  of  State  rights ;  and  if  a 
leaf  from  history  was  needed  to  corroborate  the  assertions 
of  the  opening  paragraphs  of  this  chapter,  the  virulence 
with  which  this  unremitting  contest  has  been  here  con- 
ducted would  amply  supply  the  blank.  The  concession  of 
power  !  How  the  bare  statement  arouses  the  most  dormant 
element  of  human  nature  !  It  was  the  chief  point  of  con- 
tention in  the  Constitutional  Convention ;  its  refutation 
has  been  the  slogan  of  a  great  and  enduring  political 
organization  ;  its  dispute  enveloped  us  in  the  recent  gigan- 
tic rebellion ;  and  the  abuse  of  its  prerogatives  in  this  direc- 
tion by  the  Administration  now  in  power  has  done  more  to 
alienate  the  North  and  South  than  all  the  ordinances  of 
secession  ever  adopted,  and  constitutes  the  chief  lever 
which  will  oust  the  present  rulers  of  the  nation  from  the 
places  of  their  dishonored  trust. 

In  a  prior  chapter  of  this  treatise  occasion  was  had  to 
state  the  nature  of  the  national  Government,  the  origin  of 
its  creation  and  the  source  from  whence  it  derives  its  power. 
In  reference  to  the  first,  suffice  it  here  to  say  that  the  Gen- 
eral Government  is  not  a  compact,  a  league,  of  the  States, 
but  a  distinct  creation  of  the  people  in  their  collective 
capacity,  as  distinguished  from  one  which  emanates  from 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  555 

the  action  of  the  corporate  States ;  in  respect  to  the  sec- 
ond, its  origin  dates  from  the  evils  of  the  old  Confedera- 
tion, which  was  a  mere  compact  of  the  States,  instead  of  a 
government  of  the  people ;  and  as  to  the  third,  the  source 
of  its  power  is  identical  with  the  agency  which  gave  it  life. 
The  office  of  the  present  comment  is  to  define  the  limits 
within  which  this  power  shall  be  held  exclusive  and  su- 
preme. 

The  old  Jeffersonian  theory  of  State  rights — the  essence 
of  which,  not  to  descend  into  particulars,  consisted  in  the 
claim  that  the  General  Government  was  a  league  of  the 
States,  and  not  the  work  of  the  people,  and  that,  conse- 
quently, the  mere  will,  caprice  or  convenience  of  any  one 
of  the  States  measured  alike  both  the  extent  of  its  loyalty 
to,  and  the  period  of  its  connection  with,  the  general  Union 
— this  discussion  unqualifiedly  denies,  and  bases  its  position 
upon  the  arguments  adduced  in  the  prior  chapter  above 
referred  to.  The  motives  which  induced  the  formation  of 
our  Federal  fabric  conclusively  refute  the  claim.  The  fact 
that  under  the  old  Confederation  the  States  were  vested 
with  the  precise  powers  which  are  here  denied  alone  gave 
birth  to  the  manifold  evils  from  which  the  Constitutional 
Convention  sought  release,  and  it  severed  the  chains  of 
confederate  slavery  by  the  opening  words  of  the  immortal 
preamble  to  our  organic  code — "We,  the  People."  The 
exigencies  of  the  time  demanded  it,  but  the  necessities  of 
the  present,  in  this  respect,  far  outstrip  the  requirements 
of  the  past.  They  have  waxed  with  every  year  that  has 
been  added  to  the  life  of  the  republic.  At  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution  thirteen  States,  nestling  within  contiguous 
limits  upon  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  designated  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  national  domain.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment the  number  of  States  is  nearly  trebled  ;  the  aggregate 
area  in  a  far  greater  ratio  augmented  ;  the  extent  of  our 
population  stands  as  thirteen  to  one ;  the  waters  of  the  two 


55$         THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

oceans  wash  our  eastern  and  western  frontiers,  and  natural 
law  in  due  time  will  force  British  America  and  the  islands 
of  the  Gulf  to  shelter  themselves  beneath  the  folds  of  our 
national  standard.  If  1789  required  the  banishment  of 
the  Confederation,  it  would  be  idle  folly  for  1872  to  permit 
its'  release  from  exile.  If  the  public  weal  at  that  time 
demanded  that  the  will  of  "the  People"  should  be  the 
paramount  law,  much  more  is  its  continued  supremacy  now 
required. 

The  main  line  of  division  between  State  and  national 
authority  is  inferentially  disclosed  by  the  preceding  com- 
ment, and  resolves  itself  into  the  following  proposition, 
which,  although  it  does  not  presume  to  cover  every  exigency 
which  may  or  might  arise,  approximates  very  nearly  to  an 
inflexible  rule — namely,  wherever  the  peace,  safety  and 
prosperity  of  the  general  Union,  and  the  preservation  of  a 
republican  form  of  government  in  any  one  or  all  of  the 
States,  are  at  stake,  the  sway  of  the  General  Government 
should  be  both  exclusive  and  supreme  :  in  all  other  instances 
the  fiat  of  the  States  should  be  the  paramount  law.  This 
seems  to  be  the  ruling  principle  which  governed  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution,  and  this,  moreover,  is  the  only  end 
which  can  be  legitimately  reached  by  an  impartial  inter- 
pretation of  the  letter  or  construction  of  the  spirit  of  our 
organic  law. 

Just  exactly  what  condition  of  things  may  or  might 
involve  the  peace,  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  general 
Union,  and  the  preservation  of  a  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  several  States,  may,  of  course,  be  considered 
a  debatable  point.  The  Constitution,  however,  has  pre- 
sumed, to  place  these  questions  within  appropriate  limits, 
and  its  dictum,  whether  purely  arbitrary  or  founded  upon 
reason,  must  be  regarded  altogether  inviolate.  In  respect 
to  the  last,  however,  it  will  be  remembered  that  in  the 
examination  of  the  subjects  of  Force  Legislation  and  Re- 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  $$? 

construction  the  question  as  to  what  constitutes  a  republican 
form  of  government  was  shown  to  be  a  political  and  not 
a  judicial  one,  and  that  the  tribunal  which  alone  has  juris- 
diction of  the  matter  is  made  up  of  the  chief  executive  and 
the  national  legislature. 

The  prescribed  limits  of  Federal  prerogative  above  re- 
ferred to  are  found  in  the  express  and  implied  powers 
which  the  Constitution  has  conferred  upon  the  General 
Government.  It  would  be  both  inexpedient  and  irrelevant, 
at  this  initiatory  stage  of  the  discussion,  to  engage  in  a 
separate  examination  of  these  several  powers  in  respect  to 
their  defensibility.  Their  enumeration  must  here  suffice  : 
whether  the  exigencies  of  the  time  demand  their  curtail- 
ment or  extension  will  be  considered  farther  on.  The 
inquiry  which  here  properly  presses  itself  upon  our  atten- 
tion is  of  a  different  nature,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  comment 
which  immediately  succeeds  the  following  enumeration. 
In  cases  where  these  powers  are  exclusively  vested  in 
national  authority  the  same  will  be  so  stated  in  the  several 
definitions.  In  the  absence  of  such  statement  it  may  be 
inferred  that  the  power  is  vested  in  both  the  States  and 
General  Government,  remembering  also  that  in  the  exer- 
cise of  these  joint  powers  the  action  of  the  latter  has  pre- 
cedence. 

POWERS  VESTED  BY  THE  CONSTITUTION  IN  THE  GENERAL 
GOVERNMENT. 

1.  The  right  to  prescribe  rules  in  respect  to  the  time, 
place  and  manner  of  choosing  national  Representatives, 
and  the  time  and  manner  of  choosing  national  Senators. 

2.  The  right  to  lay  and  collect  taxes  and  excises ;  direct 
taxes  to  be  laid  upon  a  basis  of  the  representative  popu- 
lation— all  others  with  uniformity. 

3.  The   exclusive   right   to  lay  and   collect  duties  and 

47  • 


5  $8         THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

imposts,  except  those  necessary  to  enforce  the  inspection 
laws  of  the  several  States. 

4.  The  exclusive  right  to  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of 
the  United  States. 

5.  The  exclusive  right  to  regulate  commerce  with  for- 
eign nations,  and  among  the  several  States  and  with  the 
Indian  tribes. 

6.  The  exclusive  right  to  legislate  in  respect  to  naturali- 
zation and  a  uniform  system  of  bankruptcy. 

7.  The  exclusive  right  to  coin  money;    establish  regu- 
lations therefor,  and  to  fix  the  standard  of  weights  and 
measures. 

8.  The  exclusive  right  to  establish  post-offices  and  post- 
roads. 

9.  The  exclusive  right  to  grant  patents  and  copyrights. 

10.  The  exclusive  right  to  establish  United  States  courts. 

11.  The  exclusive  right  to  legislate  in  respect  to  piracies 
and  felonies  on  the  high  seas  and  breaches  of  the  law  of 
nations. 

12.  The  exclusive  right  to  declare  and  prosecute  war,  to 
raise  and  support  armies  and  navies,  to  make  rules  for  their 
regulation,  and  to  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to 
execute  the  laws  of  the  Union  and  suppress  insurrections 
therein. 

13.  The  right  to  repel  invasions,  and,  upon  the  appli- 
cation of  their  legislatures  or  governors,   to  protect  the 
States  against  domestic  violence. 

14.  The  right  to  organize,  arm  and  discipline  the  militia. 

15.  The  exclusive  right,  in  every  respect,  to  exercise  ex- 
clusive control  over  the  national  capital,  forts,  magazines, 
arsenals  and  dockyards. 

1 6.  The  right  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in 
cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion. 

17.  The  exclusive  right  to  make  treaties,  alliances  and 
confederations;  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal ;  issue 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  559 

bills  of  credit  (that  is,  paper  money:  see  definition  of  in 
chapter  on  Money  and  Currency),  and  to  make  other 
tokens  than  gold  and  silver  a  legal  tender  for  payment  of 
debts. 

1 8.  The  right  to  determine  the  time  for  choosing  the 
electors  of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  the  exclusive 
right  to  determine  the  day  on  which  the  said  electors  shall 
cast  their  votes. 

19.  The  exclusive  right  to  appoint  the  officers,  both  civil 
and  military,  of  the  United  States. 

20.  The  exclusive  right  to  declare  the  punishment  for 
treason. 

21.  The  right  to  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  the  acts, 
records  and  judicial  proceedings  of  any  one  State  shall  be 
proved  in  any  other  State,  and  the  effect  thereof. 

22.  The   exclusive   right  to  dispose  of  and  make  rules 
respecting  United  States  property  and  territory. 

23.  The  right  to  preserve  in  every  State  a  republican 
form  of  government. 

24.  The   right   to   propose    amendments    to   the   Con- 
stitution. 

25.  The  exclusive  right  to  legislate  for  the  exercise  and 
enforcement  of  the  aforesaid  exclusive  powers. 

26.  And  the  right  to  provide  for  the  general  welfare. 
The  powers  conferred  upon  the  General  Government  in 

respect  to  hearing  and  determining  by  its  legal  tribunals 
questions  of  a  judicial  nature  have  not  been  enumerated, 
for  the  reasons  that  such  a  statement  would  not  be  particu- 
larly pertinent  to  the  present  treatise,  and  that  the  original 
grants  by  the  Constitution  in  this  direction  have  been 
materially  modified,  in  respect  to  their  exclusive  character, 
by  subsequent  Federal  legislation,  in  accordance  with 
authority  granted  by  our  organic  law. 

The  canons  by  which  these  powers  have  been  designated 
as  exclusive  and  joint  are  the  ones  laid  down  by  Alexander 


560          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

Hamilton — namely:  i.  All  powers  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment are  exclusive  when  the  Constitution  has  conferred 
them  with  express  words  of  exclusion.  2.  When  the  Con- 
stitution has  conferred  powers  upon  the  General  Govern- 
ment, even  without  express  words  of  exclusion,  and  for- 
bidden the  States  to  exercise  the  same,  they  shall  be  deemed 
exclusive  in  the  national  authority.  3.  Powers  conferred 
upon  the  General  Government  without  express  words  of 
exclusion,  but  which  are  of  a  nature  that  forbids  a  joint 
exercise  thereof  by  both  the  States  and  the  national  author- 
ity, shall  be  deemed  exclusive  in  the  hands  of  the  latter. 
These  last  are  illustrated  by  the  matter  of  naturalization. 
The  action  of  our  courts  has  given  to  these  canons  of  Mr. 
Hamilton  the  sanction  of  law. 

The  limits  of  this  treatise  forbid  a  detailed  examination 
of  the  exact  scope  of  each  of  these  powers,  but  an  inquiry 
of  a  general  nature  crowds  its  way  to  the  foreground  in 
this  connection,  which  demands  disposal.  It  is  this : 
Granting  that  the  Constitution  has  conferred  only  such 
powers  upon  the  General  Government  as  are  legitimately 
suggested  by  the  fundamental  principle  alleged  to  have  governed 
its  framers,  as  stated  in  the  outset,  may  not  and  does  not  the 
national  authority,  by  virtue  of  its  superior  might,  overstep 
the  limits  assigned  to  it  by  our  organic  law  ?  A  reply  to 
this  interrogatory  is  now  proposed,  and  will  be  made  by 
reviewing  the  principal  points  which  have  been  and  are 
at  issue,  under  the  powers  above  stated,  in  the  question  of 
State  Rights  vs.  National  Authority,  accompanied  by  a 
statement  of  what  seems  to  be  the  better  opinion  in  respect 
to  the  rightfulness  of  the  opposing  claims. 

We  preface  the  review  above  announced  with  a  reiteration 
of  our  unqualified  denial  of  the  dogma  of  State  rights  which 
declared  the  national  Union  a  compact  of  the  several  States, 
with  the  consequent  right  resulting  to  any  one  of  them  to 
withdraw  from  such  compact  at  pleasure,  to  dissolve  the 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.          56 1 

Union — in  short,  to  secede.  The  Union,  legally  speaking, 
is  indissoluble.  The  iron  hand  of  war  is  the  only  agency 
which  can  tear  it  asunder.  The  parties  to  the  general 
Union — the  People — know  no  peaceful  divorcement  from 
their  bridal.  It  is  impossible.  Separation  means  revolu- 
tion. The  adoption  of  the  Constitution  by  the  people  was 
an  irrevocable  act.  The  organic  code  can  be  amended, 
but  the  power  of  amendment  does  not  go  to  the  extent  of  strip- 
ping it  of  its  republican  robes.  We  will  not  repeat  the  argu- 
ment which  was  made  at  length  upon  this  point  in  our 
chapter  upon  the  Constitutional  Amendments,  but  the  con- 
clusion is  inevitable — the  General  Government  can  suffer 
disintegration  or  death  by  violence  alone. 

Referring  now  to  the  points  at  issue  under  the  powers 
above  named,  a  clash  has  occurred  between  the  opposing 
forces,  in  respect  to  the  one  first  noted,  upon  the  question 
of  elections.  We  hazard  the  statement  that  the  extreme 
limit  of  national  prerogative  in  this  direction  consists  in  the 
right  of  regulating  the  time,  place  and  manner  of  choosing 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  time  and 
manner  of  choosing  national  Senators.  The  proposition 
requires  no  elucidation.  Over  both  points  the  General 
Government  has  exclusive  control,  except  that  it  is  power- 
less to  change  the  place  for  choosing  members  of  the  national 
Senate.  The  present  Administration  and  its  legislators, 
however,  have  clearly  violated  these  plain  provisions.  The 
act  of  February  28,  1871,  still  in  force,  authorizes  officials 
of  the  General  Government,  appointed  for  the  purpose,  in 
cities  numbering  twenty  thousand  people  and  over,  to 
"personally  scrutinize,  count  and  canvass  each  and  erery 
ballot,'1  whether^pr  local  or  national  offices;  authorizes 
United  States  marshals  to  appoint  deputies  without  number 
to  assist  in  this  work ;  authorizes  these  marshals  to  arrest 
any  voter  at  the  polls  without  process  or  warrant ;  attaches 
a  penalty  to  the  refusal  of  every  citizen  to  assist  such 

Y  2 


$62          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

marshals,  when  called  on,  of  imprisonment  for  two  years 
and  a  fine  of  three  thousand  dollars  ;  and  places,  in  short, 
all  local  elections  in  cities  numbering  twenty  thousand 
people  and  over,  whenever  officials  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment are  to  be  chosen,  entirely  under  national  authority 
and  supervision. 

The  direct  end  of  this  statute  is  to  enable  a  ruling  admin- 
istration to  re-elect  itself,  and  the  supporters  of  the  one  now 
in  power,  with  the  advice  and  sanction  of  the  chief  execu- 
tive, not  only  stoutly  resisted  its  repeal,  but  attempted  to 
extend  its  operation  over  the  entire  country  for  the  express 
purpose  above  stated,  and  that  by  a  proceeding,  to  say  the 
least,  extremely  irregular,  if  not  fraudulent.  A  rule  of  the 
Senate  forbids  the  tacking  of  an  amendment  to  any  measure 
unless  strictly  germane  to  the  subject  of  the  main  bill.  The 
executive  party  lacked  the  effrontery  to  offer  the  measure 
above  noted  as  a  distinct  bill,  and  proposed  it  as  an  amend- 
ment to  a  general  appropriation  bill,  thinking  that,  rather 
than  leave  the  Administration  without  means  for  carrying  on 
the  government,  the  amendment  would  be  adopted  and  the 
bill  passed.  The  merest  tyro  in  legislation  sees  at  once  that 
the  proposed  amendment  was  not  germane  to  the  main  bill. 
Mr.  Colfax  could  not  be  trusted  to  rule  it  germane,  but 
Senator  Anthony  took  the  chair,  and,  with  an  appreciation 
truly  wonderful  and  nicely  subtle,  ruled  that  a  provision 
placing  the  local  elections  of  the  entire  country  under 
national  supervision  and  control  was  germane  to  a  bill 
appropriating  means  for  keeping  in  motion  the  wheels  of 
government.  Despite  the  manly  protests  of  such  men  as 
Lyman  Trumbull,  Carl  Schurz  and  Charles  Sumner,  the 
amendment  was  adopted  by  the  Senate,  but  when  it  reached 
the  House  it  met  with  the  ignoble  defeat  which  its  ques- 
tionable character  richly  deserved. 

A  collision  has  also  occurred  between  the  opposing 
forces  under  the  second  power  noted  in  the  list,  in  respect 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  $63 

to  the  right  of  the  General  Government  to  lay  and  collect 
an  excise-tax.  The  contest  assumed  the  shape  of  open  insur- 
rection in  Pennsylvania  in  1794,  against  the  whisky-tax  of 
that  year,  and  was  promptly  and  legally  suppressed.  The 
national  authority  in  the  premises  is  clearly  undoubted, 
and  extended  comment  is  unnecessary. 

Under  the  third  power  above  stated  trouble  has  also 
arisen  between  the  respective  forces — namely,  the  rebellion 
of  South  Carolina,  during  Andrew  Jackson's  administra- 
tion, against  the  tariff  of  that  period.  The  authority  of 
the  General  Government  to  impose  imposts  is  not  only 
unimpeachable,  but  also  exclusive,  except  in  the  trifling 
exception  mentioned  in  the  statement  of  the  power. 

By  an  unwarranted  and  illegal  construction  of  the  Four- 
teenth amendment  the  present  Administration  and  its  law- 
makers have  unhesitatingly  violated  the  thirteenth  and 
twenty-third  powers  in  the  above  enumeration  by  the  pas- 
sage and  execution  of  the  measure  commonly  known  as  the 
"  Ku-klux  act."  We  will  not  repeat  our  examination  of 
this  abortive  scheme  of  legislation.  It  is  discussed  at 
length  in  our  chapter  upon  Force  Legislation,  to  which 
reference  may  be  had  if  desired.  Suffice  it  here  to  say 
that  it  is  wholly  illegal  and  indefensible. 

The  present  Administration  and  its  lawmakers,  again, 
have  openly  transgressed  the  sixteenth  power  above  enu- 
merated by  the  habeas  corpus  provision  of  the  so-called 
Ku-klux  act.  We  refer  again  to  our  chapter  on  Force 
Legislation  for  corroboration  of  the  assertion. 

The  foregoing  statement  of  facts  defines  the  principal 
limits  of  both  the  past  and  the  present  battle-ground  upon 
which  the  conflict  of  State  Rights  vs.  National  Authority  has 
been  and  is  still  conducted.  The  interrogatory  put  at  the 
close  of  the  above  enumeration  of  powers,  however,  is  not 
yet  fully  answered.  It  calls  for  a  statement  not  only  of  the 
cases  in  which  the  General  Government  has  clashed  with 


564          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  States  in  reference  to  the  exercise  of  constitutional  war- 
rant, but  also  the  instances,  if  any,  in  which  the  national 
authority  has  stepped  entirely  outside  of  the  Constitution — 
instances  in  which  it  cannot  even  allegedly  summon  the 
powers  conferred  by  that  instrument  to  sanction  its  conduct 
and  clothe  it  with  legal  warrant.  This  portion  of  the  reply 
will  now  be  offered,  and  will  refer,  with  a  single  exception, 
to  the  action  of  the  present  Administration  alone,  for  the 
facts  of  history  confine  it  within  these  narrow  boundaries. 

The  exception  above  noted  relates  to  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  by  the  administration  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  It 
was  an  undoubted  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  the 
movers  of  the  scheme,  even,  never  presumed  to  place  it 
within  the  limit  of  constitutional  sanction.  Mr.  Jefferson 
declared  it  to  be  an  act  entirely  beyond  the  reach  of  con- 
stitutional authority,  and  advised  an  amendment  to  our 
organic  law  which  should  be  retrospective  in  its  effect  and 
antedate  in  its  operation  the  time  of  purchase.  The  end 
obtained,  however,  was  one  of  such  great  importance  to 
the  American  people — the  prevention  of  territorial  acquisi- 
tion by  Napoleon  in  the  South-west,  and  the  opening  of  an 
unrestricted  water-passage  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf  by 
means  of  the  control  of  the  Mississippi — that  the  act  was 
never  questioned  by  the  public. 

The  instances  in  which  the  present  Administration  is 
powerless  to  draw  the  mantle  of  the  Constitution  around 
its  policy  and  line  of  action  are  many  and  exceedingly 
grave.  Congress,  by  the  Constitution,  can  alone  declare 
war.  The  President  has  not  only  subverted  the  war-powers 
of  Government,  but  disregarded  the  plainest  principles  of 
international  law,  by  sending  one  squadron  of  men-of-war 
to  the  coast  of  Santo  Domingo  with  instructions  to  the  com- 
manding officer  to  sustain  Baez,  an  admitted  usurper,  in 
power  upon  this  portion  of  the  island,  while  he  (the  Presi- 
dent) should  treat  with  him  (Baez)  for  its  purchase,  and 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  565 

another  squadron,  at  the  same  time,  to  the  harbor  of  Port- 
au-Prince,  with  a  message  to  the  chief  executive  of  Hayti 
that  if  he  interfered  with  the  pending  negotiations  above 
mentioned,  the  guns  of  the  American  fleet  would  open  upon 
the  Haytian  ships. 

The  War  Office  of  the  present  Administration  has  followed 
the  example  of  its  chief — offered  indignity  to  the  German 
Government,  laughed  at  the  Code  Internationale,  and  vio- 
lated a  plain  statute  of  the  United  States,  which  authorized 
the  disposal  of  arms  unfit  for  service,  by  the  sale  of  effective 
weapons  and  ammunition  manufactured  for  the  occasion  to 
the  now  defeated  party  in  the  late  Franco-Prussian  conflict. 

The  Navy  Department  has  also  acted  its  role  in  this 
abuse  of  the  administration  of  government  by  the  illegal 
payment  of  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  what 
are  known  as  the  Secor  claimants,  in  the  teeth  of  a  prior 
record  of  Congress  which  had  directed  that  no  further  action 
be  taken  in  the  premises. 

The  office  of  Finance,  moreover,  has  played  its  part  in 
the  drama  of  official  law-breaking  by  an  open  violation  of 
a  United  States  statute,  as  seen  in  its  "Syndicate"  opera- 
tions, the  illegality  of  which  is  fully  disclosed  in  the  chap- 
ter upon  the  Public  Debt  of  the  United  States. 

The  Post-Office  Department  has  also  ranged  itself  in  line 
with  its  compeers  by  allowing  a  stale  (Chorpenning)  claim 
of  £440,000,  after  the  same  had  met  with  repeated  rejection 
for  a  period  of  fourteen  years  on  account  of  its  undoubted 
illegality  ;  and  this  in  direct  violation  of  the  will  of  Congress. 

The  President,  again,  in  addition  to  his  tampering  with 
the  war-powers  of  Government,  has  sported  with  its  judicial 
prerogatives  by  sending  a  United  States  judge  to  Utah  for 
the  purpose  of  ousting  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Territorial 
courts  over  the  Mormon  residents;  and  the  judicial  action 
of  his  messenger  has  been  pronounced  unconstitutional  by 
both  his  Attorney-General  and  the  Supreme  Court. 
48 


THE  ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

But  the  end  is  not  yet.  The  chief  executive  has  been 
charged — and  the  charge  is  fully  proved — with  making 
loyalty  to  his  personal  advancement  the  price  of  admission 
to  the  civil  service  of  the  nation ;  with  prostituting  the  busi- 
ness of  a  custom-house  which  collects  more  than  one-half 
of  the  duties  of  the  entire  country  to  the  purpose  of  con- 
trolling the  political  action  of  the  State  of  New  York  in  his 
favor ;  and  with  mulcting  the  merchants  of  the  metropolis  of 
the  nation  out  of  from  fifty  thousand  to  one  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  per  annum,  by  changing  the  custody  of  im- 
ported goods  from  the  stores  of  the  various  steamship  lines 
to  those  of  pet  proteges  of  his  own,  who  have  made  illegal 
and  excessive  charges  for  their  services  in  the  sum  above 
named. 

Official  supporters  of  the  President,  moreover,  have  laid 
their  hands  upon  one  of  the  chief  bulwarks  of  the  people's 
liberties  in  their  subversion  of  the  freedom  of  the  press. 
The  St.  Louis  Democrat  furnishes  an  illustration  of  the 
manner  in  which  a  journal  once  hostile  to  a  certain  feature 
of  the  policy  of  the  Administration  has  been  numbered 
among  its  warmest  adherents  by  the  exercise  of  a  supposed 
stock-jobbing  operation  conducted  by  presidential  parasites. 

Add  to  all  this  the  instances  of  interference  with  State 
prerogatives  already  cited — namely,  an  election  law  uncon- 
stitutional, an  unwarranted  suspension  of  the  privilege  of 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  coupled  with  a  scheme  of  force 
legislation  derogatory  of  our  organic  code — and  we  have  a 
record  of  abuse  of  official  trust  which  the  emperor  of 
Germany,  or  even  the  king  of  Spain,  would  not  dare  to 
imitate,  except  with  the  expectation  of  seeing  his  throne 
crumble  to  atoms  and  his  crown  in  the  possession  of  an 
infuriated  populace. 

The  question  which  now  presents  itself  is  the  defensibility 
of  the  powers  conferred  by  the  Constitution  upon  the  Gen- 
eral Government.  Do  they  require  either  curtailment  or 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  567 

extension?  or  are  they  already  adequate  for  the  mutual 
advancement  of  both  the  States  and  the  republic?  The 
latter,  it  must  be  confessed,  with  one  exception,  is  seem- 
ingly the  better  opinion.'  Our  present  enormous  territorial 
area,  coupled  with  its  prospective  enlargement,  furnishes 
the  chief  argument  of  the  theorists  who  advocate  the  neces- 
sity of  "a  strong  government,"  and  the  consequent  central- 
ization of  power  in  the  hands  of  national  authority.  But 
the  alleged  necessities  advanced  by  the  argument,  save  in 
one  instance,  are  already  provided  for.  With  the  old  dogma 
of  State  rights  denied  by  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword,  as 
well  as  by  judicial  authority,  which  signified,  in  plain  par- 
lance, secession — with  this  theory  buried  in  a  grave  from 
which  there  shall  be  no  resurrection — supplemented  by  the 
exclusive  powers  in  the  possession  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment of  declaring  and  waging  war,  of  laying  and  collecting 
imposts,  of  regulating  commerce,  of  directing  the  character 
of  our  circulating  medium,  and  of  prescribing  rules  for  the 
regulation  of  United  States  territory,  and  the  joint  power 
of  preserving  a  republican  form  of  government  in  the  several 
States,  centralization  is  not  demanded  by  the  exigencies  of 
the  period,  except,  as  already  stated,  in  one  single  particu- 
lar— suffrage. 

In  this  respect  this  discussion  most  emphatically  urges  a 
policy  of  centralization.  It  urges  it  because  it  is  needed  to 
perpetuate  the  fundamental  principle  which  governed  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution — that  the  General  Government 
should  be  possessed  of  sufficient  power  to  guard  the  peace, 
safety  and  prosperity  of  the  general  Union ;  because  it  is 
needed  to  prevent  just  such  subversion  of  law  as  the  present 
Administration  has  put  upon  record. 

The  exact  point  urged  is  this — that  suffrage  should  be  a 
national  institution,  that  the  qualifications  for  voters  should 
be  uniform  in  every  instance,  and  that  the  same  should  be 
prescribed  by  national  authority.  The  critical  mind  will 


568          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

doubtless  in  this  connection  interpose  the  objection  that 
the  argument,  coupled  with  the  alleged  end  it  is  designed 
to  secure  as  above  stated,  is  suicidal — that  the  control  of 
suffrage  by  the  General  Government  would  tend  to  augment 
instead  of  restrict  the  usurpation  of  national  authority.  The 
position  is  only  seemingly  sound.  The  question  is  one  of 
a  very  different  nature  from  those  which  have  thus  far  given 
rise  to  a  conflict  between  State  and  national  authority. 
The  control  of  suffrage  by  the  General  Government  means 
its  supervision  by  the  combined  agencies  of  the  national 
legislature  and  chief  executive.  A  moment's  reflection  will 
suffice  to  convince  the  most  skeptical  that  the  only  motor- 
power  which  would  govern  the  action  of  these  respective 
agencies  would  be  a  desire  to  place  the  institution  upon  the 
most  sure,  equitable  and  efficient  foundation.  Our  history 
shows  conclusively  that  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  instances 
in  which  a  political  party  has  been  able  to  marshal  the 
forces  of  the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of  the  Gen- 
eral Government  in  support  of  purely  party  aims  have  been 
those  in  which  State  prerogatives  of  a  permanent  nature 
have  failed  to  be  involved. 

Upon  the  hypothesis  that  suffrage  is  a  national  institu- 
tion, it  is  clearly  apparent  that  the  only  conceivable  man- 
ner in  which  a  party  in  power  could  make  use  of  it  as  a 
lever  for  the  attainment  of  its  own  peculiar  ends  would  be 
by  a  provision  which,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  would 
operate  to  restrict  the  privilege  of  voting  among  the  mem- 
bers of  opposing  organizations — to  disfranchise  its  oppo- 
nents. That  any  political  organization  would  have  the 
effrontery  to  hazard  the  promulgation  of  such  a  policy  is 
hardly  a  supposable  case.  Loyalty  to  party  policy  would 
alone  forbid  it,  for  the  iniquity  of  the  scheme  would  not 
only  insure  it  an  ultimate  burial,  but  hasten  the  official 
dethronement  of  its  originators. 

There  are   other  and   more  potent  agencies,   however, 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  569 

which  would  preclude  the  prosecution  of  such  unwarrant- 
able means.  The  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  consti- 
tutes not  only  the  most  important  but  the  most  lasting  of 
any  of  the  prerogatives  which  attach  to  State  authority.  It 
is,  so  to  speak,  the  first,  last  and  only  means  by  which  a 
State  can  make  its  influence  felt  in  shaping  the  policy  and 
destiny  of  the  republic.  The  several  ways  in  which  the 
party  in  power  could  be  supposed  to  mould  the  institution 
of  suffrage  for  the  advancement  of  its  own  peculiar  purposes 
are  only  four  in  number — namely,  the  direct  disfranchise- 
ment  of  its  opponents,  a  qualification  in  respect  to  prop- 
erty, a  qualification  in  respect  to  acquiring  citizenship,  and 
a  qualification  in  respect  to  intelligence.  The  first  no 
party  would  ever  dare  attempt ;  the  last  three  immediately 
summon  into  offensive  action  the  dearest  interests  of  the 
several  States,  and  their  respective  members  in  the  national 
legislature,  in  consideration  of  such  issues,  would  not  hesi- 
tate for  a  moment  between  the  alternative  of  choosing  the 
advancement  of  a  national  party  and  the  defence  and  pro- 
motion of  their  local  interests.  Self-aggrandizement,  loy- 
alty to  constituents  and  a  train  of  collateral  forces  would 
militate  against  their  ranging  themselves  with  the  central- 
izing and  usurping  element.  The  party  shibboleth  would 
here  be  robbed  of  both  its  charm  and  power. 

There  is,  moreover,  another  aspect  to  the  question. 
The  prior  comment  has  proceeded  upon  the  idea  that  with 
suffrage  once  made  a  national  institution,  its  future  regula- 
tion would  be  in  pursuance  of  national  legislation.  The 
seeming  objections  above  enumerated,  however  (and  this 
discussion  claims  they  are  only  such),  might  be  effectually 
disposed  of  by  a  prescription  in  our  organic  code  that  the 
institution,  although  national,  should  never  suffer  change 
except  by  an  amendment  to  our  Federal  charter. 

In  the  outset  of  this  immediate  discussion  the  prevention 
of  Federal  usurpation  was  urged  as  one  of  the  reasons  for 

48* 


570         THE   ISSUES  OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

the  institution  of  this  feature  of  centralization.  The  scope 
of  the  argument  is  simply  this.  It  is  probably  useless  to 
hope — perhaps  the  wish  would  savor  of  injustice,  but  we 
doubt  it — that  a  qualification  of  intelligence  will  ever  be 
attached  to  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  so  far  as 
those  now  endowed  with  the  privilege  are  concerned.  If 
a  critical  reader  asks  that  this  treatise  commit  itself  more 
fully  upon  this  single  point,  let  him  console  himself  with 
the  answer  that  it  candidly  and  emphatically  argues  that 
the  wisest  act  which  the  American  people  could  to-day  put 
upon  record  would  be  to  consign  two-fifths  of  its  enfran- 
chised citizens  to  a  probation  based  upon  intelligence,  and 
never  allow  them  to  cast  another  ballot  till  the  period  of 
probation  should  have  been  concluded.  Such  a  proscrip- 
tion would  reach  white,  black,  native  and  alien  equally  and 
impartially. 

Admitting  the  probable  impossibility  of  such  a  scheme, 
however — if  such  a  seeming  paradoxical  expression  may  be 
tolerated — this  discussion  augurs,  as  already  intimated,  that 
the  experience  of  the  past  and  the  present  would  induce 
the  future  to  place  the  institution  of  suffrage,  if  made  a 
national  one,  upon  a  prospective  basis  of  intelligence,  and 
so  curb  the  tendencies  of  centralization  by  the  General 
Government. 

The  pages  of  history  are  burdened  with  proofs  that  igno- 
rance, and  not  intelligence,  delights  in  the  exercise  of 
unwarranted  and  unauthorized  power.  The  ignorance  (and 
the  term  is  here  used  in  a  relative  sense  as  connected  with 
the  requisites  of  a  chief  magistrate)  that  now  sits  enthroned 
at  the  head  of  the  executive  department  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  was  put  in  possession  of  its  official 
coronet  by  the  ballots  of  ignorant  and  unqualified  voters, 
and  if  continued  in  the  place  of  its  dishonored  trust,  it  will 
be  by  the  voice  and  choice  of  the  same  identical  agency. 

Ignorance,  in  short,  in  the  exalted  position  of  a  member 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  5/1 

of  the  General  Government  will  alone  indulge  in  unbridled 
and  illegal  action,  and  the  latter  tan  be  prevented  only  by 
excluding  this  element  from  the  forces  which  direct  the 
organism  of  the  governmental  directories.  It  cannot  be 
otherwise.  The  stream  cannot  rise  above  the  fountain. 
Ignorance  begets  its  like,  and'  intelligence  stamps  its 
features  upon  every  object  of  its  creation. 


CONCLUSION. 

The  deduction  to  be  made  from  the  preceding  comment 
upon  the  centralization  of  power  cannot  have  failed  to  sug- 
gest itself  to  every  American  mind  and  every  lover  of  re- 
publican institutions. 

When  the  recent  contest  in  respect  to  excluding  the 
Church  from  the  supervision  of  the  school-system  of  Ger- 
many was  concluded  by  an  adoption  of  a  measure  to  that 
effect  by  the  Reichstag,  Chancellor  Bismarck  added  to  the 
many  trite  and  comprehensive  declarations  he  has  so  fre- 
quently put  upon  record,  his  notable,  exultant  and  almost 
defiant  yet  praiseworthy  edict,  "that  the  only  sovereignty 
that  will  be  hereafter  tolerated  in  Germany  is  the  sovereignty 
of  law." 

The  principle  embodied  in  this  decree  of  the  able  states- 
man and  indomitable  Teuton  should  be  adopted  as  the  first 
article  of  the  new  political  creed  of  the  American  people, 
with  the  express  provision  that  it  shall  never  suffer  abroga- 
tion or  amendment.  It  is  a  tenet  which  has  been  placed 
at  the  end  of  the  code  of  the  present  Administration,  or 
rather  it  has  never  been  accorded  a  place  therein  of  any 
sort  whatever.  The  chief  weakness,  the  prime  defect,  the 
cardinal  fault  of  the  regime  that  assumed  the  direction  of 
the  General  Government  in  the  spring  of  1869  is  its  absolute 
and  unqualified  lawlessness.  That  it  has  been  based  in 
many  instances,  as  its  defenders  allege,  upon  ignorance,  is 


S72          THE  ISSUES   OF  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 

undoubtedly  true,  but  this  augments  instead  of  palliates  the 
faulty  character  of  its  policy  and  line  of  action.  Its  short- 
comings in  this  direction  are  not  merely  trivial — they  are 
of  the  gravest  possible  character.  These  defects  of  our 
present  Government  are  not  here  referred  to  in  the  way  of 
either  criticism  or  crimination.  The  former  has  already 
been  given  in  a  prior  connection,  and  aimed  to  be  candid, 
impartial,  impersonal,  truthful  and  free  from  malice.  The 
point  is  here  allowed  a  repeated  mention  solely  for  the 
purpose  of  pointing  to  the  conclusion  which  naturally  flows 
from  the  discussion  of  the  topic  of  centralization. 

The  bulwark  of  republican  institutions,  the  shield  which 
can  alone  effectually  resist  the  onslaughts  of  discontent,  and 
assure  their  maintenance  even,  not  to  say  supremacy,  is  the 
inviolability  of  their  organic  and  municipal  law. 

Absolutism,  so  to  speak,  must  attach  in  some  way  to 
every  form  of  government  whatsoever.  In  monarchical 
countries  the  ruling  monarch  possesses  this  really  royal 
attribute.  In  the  American  republic,  however,  its  consti- 
tutional and  statute  laws  are  the  only  kings  of  the  people. 
They  must  stand  immutable  in  respect  to  their  supremacy 
over  all  other  agencies,  for  all  attempts  to  make  them  sec- 
ondary, as  in  the  case  of  the  present  Administration,  are 
simple  efforts,  however  well  intended,  to  change  the  republic 
to  an  empire — to  take  a  step  backward  from  the  confines  of 
civilization. 

The  triviality  of  offences  in  this  direction  affords  no  excuse 
for  their  commission.  As  Carl  Schurz  has  truly  said, 
"  The  rights  of  the  people  are  never  taken  away  with  sound 
of  trumpet,  but  in  a  quiet,  unobtrusive  way,  under  some 
far-fetched  text." 

The  immediate  antecedents  of  the  American  people  give 
some  reason  for  the  present  era  of  centralizing  tendencies 
and  the  violation  of  law  on  the  part  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment. They  have  just  emerged  from  a  stupendous  con- 


THE   CENTRALIZATION  OF  POWER.  5/3 

flict,  wherein  the  heat  and  exigencies  of  the  struggle  fre- 
quently led  to  expedients  which  couid  hardly  claim  the 
element  of  legality.  The  masses,  in  short,  have  become 
accustomed  to  the  spectacle  of  a  disregard  of  legal  restraints 
by  public  authority,  and  the  chief  executive,  schooled  to 
undoubted  perfection  in  the  arts  of  war,  but  almost  wholly 
untutored  in  the  requirements  of  peace,  has  very  naturally 
tended  to  shape  his  action  by  the  code  of  personalism  which 
alone  attaches  to  military  life  and  the  administration  of 
despotic  government. 

The  sunlight  of  peace,  however,  again  smiles  upon  the 
entire  length  and  breadth  of  our  national  domain ;  and 
while  "Our  Country  and  its  Institutions"  should  be  the 
burden  of  every  morning  orison  and  evening  supplication 
to  the  King  of  kings,  "the  only  sovereignty  that  will  be 
hereafter  tolerated  in  the  American  republic  is  the  sove- 
reignty of  law  "  should  be  written  in  deathless  letters  above 
the  portals  of  every  abode  of  official  power  that  stands 
within  the  territorial  limits  of  the  United  States. 


INDEX. 


ABSOLUTISM  must  exist  in  all  govern- 
ments, 572. 

Adams,  John  Quincy ,  as  a  statesman,  517. 

Agriculture,  pursuit  of,  428,  429,  435,  436, 
443<  444 :  needs  no  protection  in  the 
United  States,  464-466. 

Alabama,  how  reconstructed,  202,  205, 
294  ;  abuse  of  custom-houses  of,  371. 

Alcavala,  Spanish,  500. 

Amnesty,  general  remarks  on,  296;  the 
several  measures  of  proscription,  297, 
300,  305 ;  the  abstract  causes  which  in- 
voke amnesty,  301,  302  ;  the  ends  sought, 
and  means  for  their  accomplishment, 
302,  303  ;  the  moral  argument,  303,  304  ; 
the  question  in  the  United  States,  304 ; 
the  last  measures  of  proscription  con- 
demned, 304-308 ;  universal  amnesty 
demanded,  309,310;  legality  of  Presi- 
dent Johnson's  pardons,  310-312  ;  am- 
nesty in  Missouri,  315. 

Aristotle  on  man,  422  ;  on  life,  515. 

Arkansas,  how  reconstructed,  200,  20!, 
305,  218,  270,  293. 

As,  Roman,  150. 

Assessments,  political,  354,  373,  374. 

Ayr,  Bank  of,  64. 

BALANCE  of  trade,  40-45. 

Banks,  Ayr  Bank,  64;  United  States 
Bank,  6$:  Gold  banks,  74,  75;  the 
cause,  origin  and  growth  of  banking 
business,  95-98 ;  private  banking  in 
England  and  the  United  States,  112-115; 
Bank  of  Kngland,  nature  of,  na;  how 
chartered,  164;  Banks  of  Amsterdam, 
Genoa  and  Venice,  detailed  and  inter- 
esting description  of,  115-119;  Hank  of 
England  pays  a  tax  on  it*  circulation, 

'33- 

Bank«,  N.  P.,  in  Louisiana,  TOO. 
Barter,  ja. 


Bismarck  on  the  sovereignty  of  law,  571. 

Blackstone,  William,  on  evils  of  funding, 
163. 

Bowen,  Francis,  upon  decline  in  value  of 
money,  49  ;  on  evils  of  funding  schemes, 
163  ;  as  a  writer  upon  public  economics, 
163  ;  on  taxing  bachelors,  486,  487. 

Bradley,  Justice,  on  effect  of  Fourteenth 
amendment,  244. 

Breckenridge,  John  C.,  as  Vice-President, 

197- 

Brokers,  Wall  street,  51,  52. 

Bronson,  Justice,  on  the  Constitution,  >n. 

Brougham,  Lord,  on  salaries,  374. 

Brown,  B.  Gratz,  on  amnesty  in  Mis- 
souri, 315. 

Huff  m  on  genius,  366. 

Burke,  Edmund,  on  government,  263. 

Butler,  B.  F.,  on  legal-tender  notes,  182. 

CALHOUN,  JOHN  C.,  on  tariffs,  452. 

California,  gold-mines  of,  65. 

Capital,  laws  of,  413-416. 

Centralization,  333-336;  as  seen  in  an- 
cient states,  552 ;  the  difficulty  of  the 
question,  553,  554 ;  State  Rights  -•$. 
National  Authority,  554,  555 ;  the  Jcf- 
fersonian  theory,  555;  line  of  division 
between  State  and  National  authority, 
556 ;  how  denned  by  the  Constitution, 
55<>p  557 :  powers  conferred  upon  the 
General  Government,  557-559 ;  how  con- 
strued, 560;  secession  denied,  561  ;  the 
battle-ground  of  State  Rights  vt.  Na- 
tional Authority,  and  the  instances  in 
which  the  present  Administration  ha* 
acted  illegally,  561-566;  suffrage  should 
be  made  a  national  institution,  566-571 ; 
the  prime  defect  of  the  present  Admin- 
istration, 571,  572;  the  reason  of  pres- 
ent centralizing  tendencies,  572,  573. 

Certificate*  of  deposit,  i»*ues  of,  73. 

575 


576 


INDEX. 


Cheapness,  law  of,  404-406. 
Chicago,  fire  at,  258. 
Chicago,  platform  of,  258. 
Chorpenning,  claim  of,  in  Post-office  De- 
partment, 565. 

Circulating  medium,  amount  now  needed 
in  the  United  States,  82-84;  >ts  issue 
belongs  to  the  people,  107,  108;  circu- 
lating medium  of  London,  109 ;  con- 
vertibility of,  fully  considered,  110-112. 

Circulation,  its  issue  belongs  to  the  peo- 
ple, 107,  108 ;  amount  of  bank  circula- 
tion in  the  United  States,  112;  of  no 
benefit  to  city  banks,  115 ;  country  banks 
abuse  it,  115. 

Cities,  question  of,  431-436. 

Civilization,  stages  of,  511,  512;  as  con- 
nected with  government,  511-517. 

Civil  Rights  (see  RECONSTRUCTION). 

Clanship,  difficulties  of,  524,  525. 

Clay,  Henry,  financial  measure  of,  65  ; 
on  tariffs,  452-455  ;  an  aspirant  for  the 
presidency,  455  ;  as  a  statesman,  517. 

Coal,  protective  tariff  not  needed  on, 
464-466. 

Colbert,  the  originator  of  the  idea  of 
making  a  public  debt  perpetual,  160. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  on  the  election  law,  562. 

Competition,  409-418. 

Compound-interest  notes,  71,  72. 

Confederation,  a  State  league,  202-204; 
suffrage  under,  257,  258. 

Confiscation,  acts  of,  193,  194,  215,  216. 

Congress,  what  constitutes  two-thirds  of 
both  Houses  of,  197,  198 ;  on  recon- 
struction, 72,  8l,  82,  85-88,  200,  201,  205, 

206;  error  of,  in  reconstruction,  222.  • 
Constitution,  not  a  State  league,  202-204; 
amendments  to— the  scope  of  the  subject, 
190,  191 ;  the  Thirteenth  amendment, 
sentiment  of  the  public  in  respect  to,  192, 
J93  ;  legality  of  vote  proposing  the  Thir- 
teenth amendment,  196-198 ;  legality  of 
its  ratification  by  the  States,  198—206; 
constitutionality  of,  206-216;  promul- 
gation of,  226 ;  power  to  amend  the  Con- 
stitution, 207-210  ;  special,  general  and 
implied  powers  of,  207-210;  the  Su- 
preme Court  on  said  powers,  208 ;  Four- 
teenth amendment  of — its  cause,  origin 
and  import,  223-226:  proposal,  ratifi- 
cation and  promulgation  of,  227;  legal- 
ity of  vote  on,  in  Congress,  227 ;  legality 
of  ratification  of,  228,  231-236 ;  status  of 


late  insurrectionary  States  in  connection 
with,  228,229,231-236;  measure  taken 
by  Congress  to  secure  its  adoption,  229, 
230;  constitutionality  of,  237;  woman 
suffrage  under,  237-240 ;  effect  of,  on  mo- 
nopolies, 243-247 ;  general  effect  of, 
fully  stated,  247;  Fifteenth  amendment 
— its  cause,  origin  and  ratification,  248, 
249  ;  right  of  a  State  to  withdraw  its 
ratification  of  an  amendment,  251-253  ; 
constitutionality  of  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth amendments,  254-260 ;  extent  of 
power  of  amendment,  258,  259  ;  results 
of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amend- 
ments, 261,  262  ;  criticism  of  the  same, 
262—268. 

Culture,  the  plea  for,  430,  431. 

Currency,  convertible,  its  basis,  50-52 ; 
the  theory  and  utility  of,  52,  53 ;  the 
characteristics  of,  53  ;  the  proper  amount 
of  a  convertible  issue,  53  ;  inconvertible, 
or  paper  money,  its  cause,  54 ;  its  theory, 
55.  56;  fractional,  70;  "equalization" 
°f>  73.  74 :  mutilated,  evils  of,  86 ;  cur- 
rency, equalization  of,  in  United  States, 
why  not  accepted,  131. 

DAVIS,  HENRY  WINTER,  fiasco  of,  on  Mr. 
Lincoln's  reconstruction  policy,  221. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  as  connected  with  am- 
nesty, 310. 

Debt,  public,  origin  of,  and  viewed  his- 
torically, 143, 144;  why  governments  can 
easily  negotiate  loans,  144,  145 ;  when 
first  originated,  147;  France,  England 
and  Holland  cited,  147;  the  manner  of 
contracting,  147,  148 :  the  means  of 
payment  of,  as  seen  by  history,  149-151  ; 
the  theory  that  it  is  a  national  blessing 
examined,  151-155  ;  why  governments 
do  not  "pay  as  they  go,"  156;  funding 
of  (see  FUNDING  SCHEMES);  public  debt 
of  the  United  States — amount  of,  before 
the  war,  164,  165  ;  inappreciation  of  the 
extent  of  the  late  rebellion  by  Govern- 
ment in  contracting,  165, 166  ;  history  of 
the  acts  of  legislation  authorizing  its  con- 
traction, and  the  issue  of  evidences  of 
indebtedness  thereunder,  166-170;  the 
financial  errors  of  the  war-policy  of 
Government,  169-173 :  the  proper  course 
to  have  been  pursued,  171-173;  state- 
ment of  public  debt,  184 ;  decrease  of, 
184 ;  how  it  should  be  paid,  503-507 . 


INDEX. 


577 


Decrees,  Berlin,  Milan  and  Rambouillet, 

451- 

Democrat,  St.  Louis,  manipulation  of,  566. 
Deposit,  98-106 ;  amount  of,  in  New  York 

City  banks,  106;  amount  of,  in  entire 

country,  106. 
Discount,  104,  105. 

ELDER,  WILLIAM,  as  a  writer  on  public 
economics,  163. 

Emancipation,  proclamations  of,  193, 194, 
215,  216. 

England,  status  of,  in  respect  to  free  trade, 
and  why  she  advocates  it,  437-443. 

Examinations  as  a  test  of  fitness,  391-393. 

Exports,  43,  83 ;  protection  does  not  pre- 
vent, 420-423 ;  connected  with  tariffs  of 
the  United  States,  459-462. 

FAMILY,  its  purposes,  540. 

Fashion,  code  of,  493-495. 

Ferguson,  Adam,  on  animal  life,  532. 

Fesscnden,  William  Pitt,  on  impeach- 
ment of  Andrew  Johnson,  313,  314. 

Fifteenth  amendment.  (See  CONSTITU- 
TION.) 

Florida,  how  reconstructed,  293. 

Force  legislation,  the  Ku-klux  law  stated, 
316,317;  constitutionality  of,  317-331; 
the  plea  of  necessity,  331-333 ;  as  con- 
nected with  the  centralization  of  power, 
333-336;  action  taken  under  the  law, 
336 ;  the  policy  of  the  scheme,  336-342. 

Fourteenth  amendment.  (See  CONSTITU- 
TION.) 

France,  farmers-general  of,  148. 

Frcedmen,  Bureau  for  Relief  of,  273; 
scheme  vetoed  by  President  Johnson, 
273.  274-'  comment  on,  282,  283; 
adopted  over  President's  veto,  and 
commented  on,  284,  285. 

Free  trade.  (See  PROTECTION  and  FREE 
TRADE.) 

French  armies,  565. 

Funding  schemes,  viewed  historically  and 
philosophically,  156-158  ;  sinking  fund*, 
159;  process  and  progress  of,  in  Eu- 
rope, 163, 161 ;  eviU  of  funding,  161-163 : 
opinions  of  eminent  writers  upon  the 
same,  163 ;  the  recent  funding  schemes 
of  the  United  States,  174, 175 ;  the  Syn- 
dicate operation  of  the  Department  of 
Finance  examined,  criticised,  proved 
illegal,  and  collateral  comment,  176-179; 

49 


the   practical    results   of  the    funding 
schemes  of  the  United  States,  181-183. 

GEORGIA,  how  reconstructed,  202-205, 249, 
293-295. 

Ghent,  treaty  of,  451. 

Gold  the  standard  measure  of  value  in  the 
United  States,  31 ;  reason  for  hoarding 
it  by  the  United  States  Treasury,  80. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  nomination  and  election  of, 
to  the  presidency,  258,  294 ;  action  of, 
in  reference  to  the  Chicago  fire,  336  ; 
reduction  of  public  debt  during  Admin- 
istration of,  184. 

Grimes,  James  N.,  on  impeachment  of 
Andrew  Johnson,  313,  314. 

HABEAS  CORPUS,  suspension  of,  326-328, 
563- 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  on  protection,  450 ; 
as  a  statesman,  450,  517;  on  the  Consti- 
tution, 559,  560. 

Hare,  Thomas,  on  minority  representa- 
tion, 549,  550. 

Hume,  on  evils  of  funding,  163. 

ILLINOIS,  railroad  policy  of,  376. 

Imports,  43,  459-462. 

Indiana  on  ratification  of  Fifteenth 
amendment,  250,  251. 

Interest,  45  ;  effect  of  moneyed  needs  of 
Government  upon  rate  of,  46 ;  effect  of 
the  age  of  a  nation's  commerce  or  the 
state  of  its  productive  industries  upon 
same,  46,  47. 

Ireland,  cause  of  famines  in,  443. 

Iron,  protective  tariff  needed  on,  464-466. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  illustrates  the  lawless- 
ness of  military  Presidents,  343. 

Jameson,  Judge,  on  woman  suffrage,  243. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  as  a  statesman,  517. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  in  Tennessee,  200;  is 
President,  201 ;  course  on  reconstruction 
reviewed,  218-222,  291 ;  vetoes  of  (see 
RECONSTRUCTION);  legality  of  pardons 
of,  310-312  ;  impeachment  of,  312-314. 

Joint-stock  companies,  evils  of,  114. 

KU-KLUX,  308,  309,  335-339. 

LABOR,  the  ultimate  measure  of  value,  28; 
how  laboring  classes  are  affected  by  our 
present  money  circulation,  85-89 ;  rude 


578 


INDEX. 


and  skilled,  427,  428,  443,  444;  English 
and  American  labor  contrasted,  436, 
437 ;  status  of  English  labor,  439-442  ; 
how  unjustly  taxed  in  the  United 
States,  498,  499. 

Laing,  Samuel,  on  political  economy,  400. 

Law-business  and  lawyers  of  the  United 
States,  391,  392. 

Ledyard  on  woman,  534. 

Lee,  General,  as  connected  with  amnesty, 
310. 

Legal-tender  notes,  first  issue  of,  69  ;  sec- 
ond and  third  issues  of,  70;  criticised, 
76,  77 ;  action  of  the  United  States  Su- 
preme Court  in  reference  to,  77,  78 ; 
authority  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury to  make  further  issues  of,  78,  79 : 
what  they  cost  the  Government,  80; 
should  be  retired,  91-94;  contest  be- 
tween, and  the  National  banks,  138- 
142. 

Lincoln,  A.,  offer  of  pardon  by,  to  the 
Southern  masses,  199,  200;  refuses  to 
indorse  Congressional  measure  of  re- 
construction, 2QJ  ;  death  of,  201  ;  course 
on  reconstruction  reviewed,  218-222, 
291. 

Literature,  nature  of,  533. 

Lobbyists,  female,  of  Washington,  542. 

Longstreet,  General,  as  connected  with 
amnesty,  310. 

Louisiana,  how  reconstructed,  200,  201, 
205,  218,  270,  293  ;  purchase  of,  564. 

Lucca,  silk  manufacturers  of,  444. 

Lumber,  protective  tariff  not  needed  on, 
464-466. 

MALTHUS,  theory  of,  as  to  population, 
440,  441. 

Marcy,  William  L.,  on  civil  service,  342  ; 
author  of,  "  To  the  victor  belong  the 
spoils  of  the  enemy,"  342. 

Marshall,  Chief-Justice,  on  the  Consti- 
tution, 208,  256. 

McCulloch  on  evils  of  funding,  163. 

McPherson,  Edward,  "  Political  Man- 
uals" of,  295. 

Medium  of  exchange,  necessity  of,  begins 
with  division  of  labor,  32. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  evils  of  funding, 
163 ;  on  protection,  425,  426 ;  on  house- 
taxes,  486;  on  governments,  513;  on 
suffrage,  529-531. 

Minorities,  representation  of,  543-551. 


Mississippi,  how  reconstructed,  249,  295. 

Money,  its  invention,  20 ;  its  origin  with 
the  ancients,  20-24;  the  subject  classi- 
fied, 24;  its  requisites,  both  material 
and  potential,  25;  the  precious  metals 
appropriated  for,  26;  money  denned, 
26 ;  the  offices  of  money,  27 ;  a  measure 
of  value,  27 ;  a  mere  nominal  measure, 
27 ;  the  nearest  absolute  measure  of  any 
material  token,  29  ;  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion its  basis,  29,  30 ;  a  medium  of  ex- 
change, 31,  32 ;  a  producer  of  value, 
32-34 ;  relations  of,  to  commerce,  34 ; 
amount  needed  for  commercial  pur- 
poses, 34-39 ;  the  character  of  money 
needed,  39,  40;  prospective  decline  in 
the  value  of,  48,  49 ;  the  kinds  and  sub- 
stitutes of,  49  ;  two  in  number,  convert- 
ible currency  and  inconvertible  currency, 
or  paper  money,  50.  PAPER  MONEY,  its 
cause,  54 ;  paper  money  in  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies,  54;  in  France,  54;  in 
Great  Britain,  55 ;  its  theory,  55,  56 ; 
its  characteristics,  56-58;  the  proper 
amount  of  an  issue  of,  58 ;  the  effect  of 
excessive  issues  of,  58-65 ;  kind  of 
money  now  in  use  in  the  United  States, 
67 ;  history  of  the  same,  68-75 ;  tne 
amount  of  money  in  circulation  before 
the  war,  68 ;  the  amount  and  kind  of 
money  in  circulation  in  the  United 
States  at  the  close  of  the  year  1871,  76 ; 
the  amount  needed  in  the  United  States 
at  the  present  time,  82-84 ;  evils  of  the 
money  now  in  circulation,  84-89 ;  how 
laboring,  salaried  and  agricultural 
classes  are  affected  by,  85-89;  evil  re- 
sulting from  mutilated  currency,  86. 

Monopolies,  protection  does  not  create, 
417-419  ;  as  effected  by  the  Fourteenth 
amendment,  243-246. 

Morton,  Oliver  P.,  on  legal-tender  notes, 
182. 

NAPOLEON,  what  it  cost  to  banish  him  to 
St.  Helena,  147,  450,  451. 

National  banking  system,  its  cause  and 
origin,  120;  the  main  features  of,  120- 
122 ;  its  material  basis,  government 
bonds,  a  great  advantage,  123,  124 ; 
arguments  against  this  feature  refuted, 
124-126 ;  capital  stock  of,  125 ;  circu- 
lation of,  125;  bonds  of,  on  deposit  at 
Washington,  125;  the  uniformity  of 


INDEX. 


579 


the  system  an  advantage,  127;  argu- 
ments against  this  feature  examined  and 
refuted,  127,  128;  its  circulation  cannot 
be  in  excess,  128;  the  system  a  mo- 
nopoly, 129,  130;  circulation  of,  should 
redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  people  and 
not  to  the  banks,  131-133 ;  the  system 
taxes  the  people  in  the  sum  of  nearly 
$20,000,000  annually,  133;  the  reserve 
feature  of  the  country  banks  wrong, 
134  ;  the  sum-total  of  the  reserve  of  the 
National  banks,  135  ;  the  inadequacy 
and  non-necessity  of  its  scheme  of  con- 
vertibility, 135,  136;  depositors  of,  no 
claim  upon  the  Government,  136,  137; 
the  contest  between  the  National  banks 
and  the  legal-tender  theorists  fully 
examined,  and  the  latter  shown  to  be  in 
the  wrong,  138-142. 

Nation,  New  York,  on  Fourteenth  amend- 
ment, 245,  246;  on  status  of  the  South, 

339-341- 

New  Jersey,  withdrawal  of  ratification  of 
Fourteenth  amendment,  231-251. 

New  Orleans,  case  of  Crescent  City  Live- 
Stock  Landing  and  Slaughtering  Com- 
pany of,  244-246;  abuse  of  custom- 
house of,  371. 

Newspapers,  attaches  of,  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  civil  service,  384,  385; 
influence  of  editorials  of,  384,  385. 

New  York  on  ratification  of  Fifteenth 
amendment,  249-251 ;  how  jeopardized 
by  universal  suffrage,  265;  corrupt 
manipulation  of  legislature  of,  by  a  col- 
lector of  customs  and  a  national  legis- 
lator, 353, 354. 

New  York  City,  report  of  clearing-house 
of,  83 ;  abuse  of  custom-house  of,  371. 

Non-intercourse  measures,  451. 

North  Carolina,  how  reconstructed,  202, 

a°5,  »93- 
Nullification  by  South  Carolina,  455. 

OATHS,  test,  constitutionality  of,  315. 
Ohio,  withdrawal  of  ratification  of  Four- 
teenth amendment,  231-351. 
Orders  in  Council,  British,  451. 
Otway,  Thomas,  on  woman,  534. 

PALMER,  GOVBKNOK  JOHN  M.,  as  con- 
nected with  the  Chicago  fire,  336. 

Panics,  commercial,  of  1837  and  1857, 
65,  461,  469. 


Pendleton,    George  H.,  on    legal-tender 

notes,  182. 
Politics,  nature  and  associations  of,  535, 

536. 

Price,  law  of,  407-410. 
Production,    extent    of,    in    the   United 

States,  37-42,  82  ;  laws  of,  404-409  ;  the 

basis  of  national  prosperity,   422-425, 

43*.  432- 

Proscription,  general  measures  of,  297- 
300,  304-306;  as  a  means  of  punish- 
ment, 307,  308. 

Protection  and  free  trade  viewed  scien- 
tifically, 399,  400 ;  line  of  argument  of 
the  opposing  forces,  400;  protection 

•  and  free  trade  defined,  401-403 ;  the 
conditions  upon  which  the  opposing 
doctrines  rest,  403-406;  limits  of  the 
two  systems,  407-426;  protection  does 
not  permanently  enhance  price,  409- 
412  ;  does  not  divert  capital  and  indus- 
try to  their  prejudice,  413-416 ;  does  not 
create  monopolies,  417-419;  does  not 
foster  ignorance,  419,  420;  is  not  tax- 
ation, 420;  does  not  bar  exportation, 
420-423;  production  the  basis  of  national 
prosperity,  422-425 ;  protection  increases 
production  by  placing  producer  and 
consumer  together,  422-425 ;  collateral 
tendencies  of  the  two  systems,  426-433  ; 
cities  and  villages  in  this  connection, 
430,  431 ;  culture,  430,  431 ;  the  ques- 
tion of  civilization,  432,  433 ;  the  proper 
policy  for  the  United  States,  their 
peculiar  status  considered,  433-435 ;  free 
trade  indefeasible  as  to  raw  materials, 
436,  437;  labor,  English  and  American, 
436,  437;  England  and  America  com- 
pared in  this  connection,  437-439  :  rea- 
son why  England  advocates  free  trade, 
439-443;  English  labor,  abuse  of,  439- 
443;  the  Malthusian  theory  of  popu- 
lation, 440,  441 ;  England  has  natural 
protection,  442,  443 ;  our  condition 
wholly  dissimilar,  443  ;  protection  de- 
fensible for  the  United  States,  444,  445. 

QUESNAI  on  land  taxation,  480. 

RANDOLPH,  JOHN,  on  tariff  of  1816,  452. 

Real  estate,  exchanges  and  sales  of, 
82. 

Reconstruction,  power  of  General  Gov- 
ernment thereon,  204, 205 ;  act  of  March 


580 


INDEX. 


2,  1867,  229,  230;  initiatory  measures 
of,  270 ;  chronological  record  of,  to 
1866,  271,  272  ;  position  of  Congress  on, 
272,  273,  281,  282  ;  Freedmen's  Bureau 
bill  vetoed  by  President  Johnson,  273, 
274,  282,  283  ;  adopted  finally,  284,  285  ; 
civil  rights  measure  adopted  over  Presi- 
dent's veto,  275,  276  ;  constitutionality 
of,  276-278 ;  constitutionality  of,  con- 
sidered, 276-281  ;  progress  of,  in  1866, 
282,  283,  285 ;  act  of  March  2,  1867, 
285,  286 ;  commented  on,  286-288 ; 
vetoed  by  President  Johnson,  288-290 ; 
the  policy  of  the  scheme,  290,  291 ;  the 
legality  of  the  Presidential  schemes  for, 
291 ;  completion  of,  292-^94. 

Register,  Niles's,  on  tariffs,  453. 

Representative  government,  elements  of, 

511-517- 

Revenue  reform,  507. 
Revenue,    United    States,    sources    and 

extent  of,  498,  499,  505 ;    amount  now 

required,  504. 

Ricardo  on  evils  of  funding,  163. 
Ryswick,  peace  of,  147. 

SALARIES  of  government  officials,  374- 
377- 

Santo  Domingo,  Grant  on,  564,  565. 

Schurz,  Carl,  on  amnesty  in  Missouri, 
315 ;  on  the  election  law,  562 ;  on  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  572. 

Scotland,  commercial  convulsion  in,  64. 

Secor,  claim  of,  in  the  Navy  Department, 
565- 

Seigniorage,  31. 

Service,  civil,  past  history  of,  342,  343 ; 
definition  of  the  phrase,  344;  outlines 
of  the  present  system,  344-346 ;  defects 
of  the  present  system,  and  their  bear- 
ings upon  the  President,  members  of 
Congress  and  members  of  the  service, 
346-350;  bearings  of  the  same  upon 
State  elections,  350-352,  353 ;  bearings 
of  the  same  upon  national  and  State 
conventions  and  local  primaries,  350- 
352  ;  bearings  of  same  upon  State  legis- 
lature, 353,  354  ;  assessments,  political, 
354;  esprit  de  corps  in  party  organi- 
zation, 354—356 ;  bearings  of  the  system 
upon  individual  character,  354-356; 
statement  of  the  number,  grade  and 
salaries  of  members  of  the  service,  356- 
359 ;  how  appointed,  359-361 ;  a  scheme 


of  reform,  consisting  of  twelve  changes 
in  our  organic  and  municipal  law,  pro- 
posed and  separately  discussed  at  length, 
361-385 ;  constitutionality  of  the  scheme, 
385,  386;  legislation  necessary  to  put  it 
in  operation,  386-388;  advantages  of, 
387,  388 ;  report  of  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission examined,  and  the  plan  there 
proposed  shown  to  be  a  failure,  389-396 ; 
abuse  of,  566. 

Seward,  William  H.,  promulgates  Four- 
teenth amendment,  230,  231 ;  as  diplo- 
mat and  Secretary  of  State,  274;   as  a 
statesman,  517. 
Shakespeare  on  woman,  534. 
Sharswood,  George,  on  woman  suffrage, 

243- 
Sheep,  flocks  and  slaughter  of,  in  various 

years,  466. 
Sherman,    John,  on    legal-tender    notes, 

182. 

Slavery,  repeal  of  its  legalization  in  New 
Mexico,  193 ;   abolition  of,  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  193;  abolition  of,  in 
the    Territories,    193.      (See    CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL AMENDMENTS  for  other  mat- 
ter in  reference  to.) 
Smith,  Adam,  on  evils  of  funding,  163. 
South  Carolina,  how  reconstructed,  202- 

205,  293. 
South,  present    status  of,   308,  339-342, 

429,  430. 

Specie  payments,  suspension  of,  in  the 
United  States,  69  ;  in  England,  90;  how 
resumption  of,  is  effected,  89-91 ;  how  it 
should  be  in  the  United  States,  91-94 ; 
Senator  Sumner's  plan  for,  criticised, 
92-94. 

State  Rights.    (See  CENTRALIZATION.) 
Steele,  General,  on  reconstruction,  200. 
Stevens,  Thaddeus,  author  of  resolution 
proposing  the  Fourteenth  amendment, 
227;  on  the  right  of  the  negro  to  vote, 
224. 

Strong  on  the  Constitution,  213. 
Suffrage,  woman,  under  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  amendments,  237-243 ; 
suffrage  under  the  Confederation,  257, 
258 ;  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
amendments  in  respect  to  suffrage  are 
anachronisms,  262-268;  the  requisites 
of  suffrage,  519-522  ;  universal  suffrage 
denied,  520;  the  abstract  limits  of, 
522-524 ;  the  proper  limits  of,  in  the 


INDEX. 


58l 


United  States,  524-530 ;  worann  suffrage 
discussed  at  length,  530-542 ;  suffrage 
should  be  made  a  national  institution, 
566-571. 

Sumner,  Charles,  on  resumption,  92-94; 
on  the  election  law,  562. 

Syndicate,  origin  and  operations  of,  176- 
179. 

Tariffs,  history  of  tariff  legislation  in  the 
United  States,  447-462;  act  of  1789, 
448 ;  amendments  of,  449,  450 ;  United 
States  had  natural  protection  from  1787 
to  1815,  450,  451;  Lowndes's  tariff  of 
1816,  451,  452  ;  tariff  of  1824,  453,  454  ; 
position  of  different  States  on,  453; 
tariff  of  1828,  454;  position  of  States 
on,  454,  455  ;  South  Carolina  and  nulli- 
fication, 455  ;  tariff  of  1842,  456,  457 ; 
tariff  of  1857,  457;  Merrill  tariff  of  1861, 
457,  463,  491,  492  ;  distress  and  disaster 
have  ever  accompanied  free  trade  in  the 
United  States,  449,  452,  453,  455-462 ; 
classes  of  articles  to  which  a  protective 
tariff  should  attach,  462-466;  the  case 
of  coal,  iron,  lumber  and  wool,  464-466 : 
agriculture  in  the  United  States  needs 
no  protection,  465-466 ;  the  extent  to 
which  a  protective  tariff  should  be  laid, 
466-468. 

Taxation,  protection  is  not,  420 ;  general 
law  of,  469,  470 ;  it  is  protection  to  life, 
liberty  and  property,  470;  how  it  is 
such  protection,  470-472;  taxes  classi- 
fied, 472  ;  taxes  defined,  473 ;  powers, 
for,  473,  474;  difficulty  in  equalizing, 
475-477 ;  proportionate  sacrifice  and  pro- 
tection, 475-477 ;  direct  taxation  con- 
sidered, 477,  478 ;  land-tax,  478-480, 
484;  the  English  land-tax,  479,  480; 
income  taxes,  481-483 ;  capitation-taxes, 
483,  484 ;  indirect  taxes,  484,  485 ; 
house-taxes,  483-487  ;  tax  on  bachelors, 
486,487;  taxes  on  vocations,  487,  488 ; 
excise-taxes,  488;  taxes  on  commcxJi- 
tics,  including  necessaries,  comforts  and 
luxuries,  488-493;  the  Lrx  on  whisky, 
492,  493 :  commodity  taxation  by  way 
of  tariffs,  495-497 ;  present  sources  of 


United  States  revenue,  and  its  extent, 
498,  499,  505 ;  State  taxation,  rules  for, 
500-502 ;  rules  for  United  States  tax- 
ation, 502-507 ;  errors  of  tax  bill  of  the 
last  Congress,  504-507. 

Tennessee,  how  reconstructed,  200-205, 
218. 

Texas,  how  reconstructed,  294,  295. 

Thirteenth  amendment.  (See  CONSTI- 
TUTION.) 

Tribune,  New  York,  letter  of  Davis  an  1 
Wade  in,  on  Mr.  Lincoln's  reconstruc- 
tion policy,  221. 

Troy,  abuse  of  custom-house  of,  371. 

Trumbull,  Lyman,  on  "two-thirds  of 
both  Houses"  of  Congress,  197;  on 
impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson,  313  ; 
as  a  statesman,  314;  on  civil  service, 
367 ;  on  the  election  law,  562. 

UNDERWOOD,  JUDGE,  on  woman  suffrage, 

»43- 
Usury  laws,  47. 

VALUE  of  two  kinds — value  for  use  and 
value  for  exchange,  27,  28 ;  the  stand- 
ard measure  of,  in  the  United  States, 
3°,  3i- 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  minister  to  England, 
342- 

Villages,  question  of,  430,  431,  436. 

Virginia,  how  reconstructed,  200,  201, 
205,  218,  249,  295. 

WADE,  B.  F.,/!<isf0  of,  on  Mr.  Lincoln's 

reconstruction  policy,  221. 
War,  European,  450,  451-458. 
Washington,  treaty  of,  146. 
Webster,  Daniel,  as  Secretary  of  State, 

274 ;    on    political    economy,  400 ;    on 

tariffs,  452-455  ;  as  a  statesman,  517. 
Weilzcll,  General,  on  reconstruction,  200. 
Whiting,  William,  on  reconstruction,  217, 

218. 
Woman,  her  nature,  534,  535 ;    instincts 

of,  534.  535.  537,  538- 
Woods,  Justice,  on  the  Constitution,  244. 
Wool,  protective    tariff  not   needed   on, 

464-466 ;  clip  of,  in  various  yean,  466. 


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